Reverse / invert a dictionary mapping

Question

Given a dictionary like so:

my_map = {\'a\': 1, \'b\': 2}

How can one invert this map to get:

inv_map = {1: \'a\', 2: \'b\'         


        

Answer 1

Try this:

inv_map = dict(zip(my_map.values(), my_map.keys()))

(Note that the Python docs on dictionary views explicitly guarantee that .keys() and .values() have their elements in the same order, which allows the approach above to work.)

Alternatively:

inv_map = dict((my_map[k], k) for k in my_map)

or using python 3.0's dict comprehensions

inv_map = {my_map[k] : k for k in my_map}