Search of Dictionary Keys python

Question

I want to know how I could perform some kind of index on keys from a python dictionary. The dictionary holds approx. 400,000 items, so I am trying to avoid a linear search.

Answer 1

If you only need to find keys that start with a prefix then you can use a trie. More complex data structures exist for finding keys that contain a substring anywhere within them, but they take up a lot more space to store so it's a space-time trade-off.