Python: List of dictionary stores only last appended value in every iteration

Question

I have this list of dictionary:

MylistOfdict = [{\'Word\': \'surveillance\',
  \'Word No\': 1},
 {\'Word\': \'equivocal\',
  \'Word No\': 2}]

Answer 1

When you append a dictionary to a list, a reference to the original object itself is appended. So, you are currently just modifying the existing object's keys and values in each iteration of the inner loop, so the last written value is the only thing which persists.

To do what you require, you would need to create a new dictionary object in each iteration of the inner loop. For the shown dictionaries in MylistOfdict, a simple dictionary comprehension would work. But if you have more complex dictionaries, use the copy module's deepcopy method.

MylistOfdict = [{'Word': 'surveillance', 'Word No': 1}, 
                {'Word': 'equivocal', 'Word No': 2}]
word_db2 = []

key = 1
for i in MylistOfdict:
    for j in range(1, 4):
        # Creating a new dictionary object and copying keys and values from i
        new_dict = {k: v for k, v in i.items()}
        new_dict['Card Type'] = 'Type '+str(j)
        new_dict['Card Key'] = key

        print(new_dict)

        word_db2.append(new_dict)
        key += 1