How to copy a dictionary and only edit the copy

Question

Can someone please explain this to me? This doesn\'t make any sense to me.

I copy a dictionary into another and edit the second and both are changed. Why is this hap

Answer 1

In addition to the other provided solutions, you can use ** to integrate the dictionary into an empty dictionary, e.g.,

shallow_copy_of_other_dict = {**other_dict}.

Now you will have a "shallow" copy of other_dict.

Applied to your example:

>>> dict1 = {"key1": "value1", "key2": "value2"}
>>> dict2 = {**dict1}
>>> dict2
{'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2'}
>>> dict2["key2"] = "WHY?!"
>>> dict1
{'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2'}
>>>

Pointer: Difference between shallow and deep copys