Calculate difference in keys contained in two Python dictionaries

Question

Suppose I have two Python dictionaries - dictA and dictB. I need to find out if there are any keys which are present in dictB but not

Answer 1

As Alex Martelli wrote, if you simply want to check if any key in B is not in A, any(True for k in dictB if k not in dictA) would be the way to go.

To find the keys that are missing:

diff = set(dictB)-set(dictA) #sets

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\thc>python -m timeit -s "dictA =    
dict(zip(range(1000),range
(1000))); dictB = dict(zip(range(0,2000,2),range(1000)))" "diff=set(dictB)-set(dictA)"
10000 loops, best of 3: 107 usec per loop

diff = [ k for k in dictB if k not in dictA ] #lc

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\thc>python -m timeit -s "dictA = 
dict(zip(range(1000),range
(1000))); dictB = dict(zip(range(0,2000,2),range(1000)))" "diff=[ k for k in dictB if
k not in dictA ]"
10000 loops, best of 3: 95.9 usec per loop

So those two solutions are pretty much the same speed.

Answer 2

here's a solution that can compare more than two dicts:

def diff_dict(dicts, default=None):
    diff_dict = {}
    # add 'list()' around 'd.keys()' for python 3 compatibility
    for k in set(sum([d.keys() for d in dicts], [])):
        # we can just use "values = [d.get(k, default) ..." below if 
        # we don't care that d1[k]=default and d2[k]=missing will
        # be treated as equal
        if any(k not in d for d in dicts):
            diff_dict[k] = [d.get(k, default) for d in dicts]
        else:
            values = [d[k] for d in dicts]
            if any(v != values[0] for v in values):
                diff_dict[k] = values
    return diff_dict

usage example:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
diff_dict([plt.rcParams, plt.rcParamsDefault, plt.matplotlib.rcParamsOrig])

Answer 3

@Maxx has an excellent answer, use the unittest tools provided by Python:

import unittest


class Test(unittest.TestCase):
    def runTest(self):
        pass

    def testDict(self, d1, d2, maxDiff=None):
        self.maxDiff = maxDiff
        self.assertDictEqual(d1, d2)

Then, anywhere in your code you can call:

try:
    Test().testDict(dict1, dict2)
except Exception, e:
    print e

The resulting output looks like the output from diff, pretty-printing the dictionaries with + or - prepending each line that is different.

Answer 4

In case you want the difference recursively, I have written a package for python: https://github.com/seperman/deepdiff

Installation

Install from PyPi:

pip install deepdiff

Example usage

Importing

>>> from deepdiff import DeepDiff
>>> from pprint import pprint
>>> from __future__ import print_function # In case running on Python 2

Same object returns empty

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3}
>>> t2 = t1
>>> print(DeepDiff(t1, t2))
{}

Type of an item has changed

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:"2", 3:3}
>>> pprint(DeepDiff(t1, t2), indent=2)
{ 'type_changes': { 'root[2]': { 'newtype': <class 'str'>,
                                 'newvalue': '2',
                                 'oldtype': <class 'int'>,
                                 'oldvalue': 2}}}

Value of an item has changed

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:4, 3:3}
>>> pprint(DeepDiff(t1, t2), indent=2)
{'values_changed': {'root[2]': {'newvalue': 4, 'oldvalue': 2}}}

Item added and/or removed

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:4}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:4, 3:3, 5:5, 6:6}
>>> ddiff = DeepDiff(t1, t2)
>>> pprint (ddiff)
{'dic_item_added': ['root[5]', 'root[6]'],
 'dic_item_removed': ['root[4]'],
 'values_changed': {'root[2]': {'newvalue': 4, 'oldvalue': 2}}}

String difference

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":"world"}}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:4, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":"world!"}}
>>> ddiff = DeepDiff(t1, t2)
>>> pprint (ddiff, indent = 2)
{ 'values_changed': { 'root[2]': {'newvalue': 4, 'oldvalue': 2},
                      "root[4]['b']": { 'newvalue': 'world!',
                                        'oldvalue': 'world'}}}

String difference 2

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":"world!\nGoodbye!\n1\n2\nEnd"}}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":"world\n1\n2\nEnd"}}
>>> ddiff = DeepDiff(t1, t2)
>>> pprint (ddiff, indent = 2)
{ 'values_changed': { "root[4]['b']": { 'diff': '--- \n'
                                                '+++ \n'
                                                '@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@\n'
                                                '-world!\n'
                                                '-Goodbye!\n'
                                                '+world\n'
                                                ' 1\n'
                                                ' 2\n'
                                                ' End',
                                        'newvalue': 'world\n1\n2\nEnd',
                                        'oldvalue': 'world!\n'
                                                    'Goodbye!\n'
                                                    '1\n'
                                                    '2\n'
                                                    'End'}}}

>>> 
>>> print (ddiff['values_changed']["root[4]['b']"]["diff"])
--- 
+++ 
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
-world!
-Goodbye!
+world
 1
 2
 End

Type change

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":[1, 2, 3]}}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":"world\n\n\nEnd"}}
>>> ddiff = DeepDiff(t1, t2)
>>> pprint (ddiff, indent = 2)
{ 'type_changes': { "root[4]['b']": { 'newtype': <class 'str'>,
                                      'newvalue': 'world\n\n\nEnd',
                                      'oldtype': <class 'list'>,
                                      'oldvalue': [1, 2, 3]}}}

List difference

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":[1, 2, 3, 4]}}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":[1, 2]}}
>>> ddiff = DeepDiff(t1, t2)
>>> pprint (ddiff, indent = 2)
{'iterable_item_removed': {"root[4]['b'][2]": 3, "root[4]['b'][3]": 4}}

List difference 2:

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":[1, 2, 3]}}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":[1, 3, 2, 3]}}
>>> ddiff = DeepDiff(t1, t2)
>>> pprint (ddiff, indent = 2)
{ 'iterable_item_added': {"root[4]['b'][3]": 3},
  'values_changed': { "root[4]['b'][1]": {'newvalue': 3, 'oldvalue': 2},
                      "root[4]['b'][2]": {'newvalue': 2, 'oldvalue': 3}}}

List difference ignoring order or duplicates: (with the same dictionaries as above)

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":[1, 2, 3]}}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":[1, 3, 2, 3]}}
>>> ddiff = DeepDiff(t1, t2, ignore_order=True)
>>> print (ddiff)
{}

List that contains dictionary:

>>> t1 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":[1, 2, {1:1, 2:2}]}}
>>> t2 = {1:1, 2:2, 3:3, 4:{"a":"hello", "b":[1, 2, {1:3}]}}
>>> ddiff = DeepDiff(t1, t2)
>>> pprint (ddiff, indent = 2)
{ 'dic_item_removed': ["root[4]['b'][2][2]"],
  'values_changed': {"root[4]['b'][2][1]": {'newvalue': 3, 'oldvalue': 1}}}

Sets:

>>> t1 = {1, 2, 8}
>>> t2 = {1, 2, 3, 5}
>>> ddiff = DeepDiff(t1, t2)
>>> pprint (DeepDiff(t1, t2))
{'set_item_added': ['root[3]', 'root[5]'], 'set_item_removed': ['root[8]']}

Named Tuples:

>>> from collections import namedtuple
>>> Point = namedtuple('Point', ['x', 'y'])
>>> t1 = Point(x=11, y=22)
>>> t2 = Point(x=11, y=23)
>>> pprint (DeepDiff(t1, t2))
{'values_changed': {'root.y': {'newvalue': 23, 'oldvalue': 22}}}

Custom objects:

>>> class ClassA(object):
...     a = 1
...     def __init__(self, b):
...         self.b = b
... 
>>> t1 = ClassA(1)
>>> t2 = ClassA(2)
>>> 
>>> pprint(DeepDiff(t1, t2))
{'values_changed': {'root.b': {'newvalue': 2, 'oldvalue': 1}}}

Object attribute added:

>>> t2.c = "new attribute"
>>> pprint(DeepDiff(t1, t2))
{'attribute_added': ['root.c'],
 'values_changed': {'root.b': {'newvalue': 2, 'oldvalue': 1}}}

Answer 5

what about standart (compare FULL Object)

PyDev->new PyDev Module->Module: unittest

import unittest


class Test(unittest.TestCase):


    def testName(self):
        obj1 = {1:1, 2:2}
        obj2 = {1:1, 2:2}
        self.maxDiff = None # sometimes is usefull
        self.assertDictEqual(d1, d2)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    #import sys;sys.argv = ['', 'Test.testName']

    unittest.main()

Answer 6

As mentioned in other answers, unittest produces some nice output for comparing dicts, but in this example we don't want to have to build a whole test first.

Scraping the unittest source, it looks like you can get a fair solution with just this:

import difflib
import pprint

def diff_dicts(a, b):
    if a == b:
        return ''
    return '\n'.join(
        difflib.ndiff(pprint.pformat(a, width=30).splitlines(),
                      pprint.pformat(b, width=30).splitlines())
    )

so

dictA = dict(zip(range(7), map(ord, 'python')))
dictB = {0: 112, 1: 'spam', 2: [1,2,3], 3: 104, 4: 111}
print diff_dicts(dictA, dictB)

Results in:

{0: 112,
-  1: 121,
-  2: 116,
+  1: 'spam',
+  2: [1, 2, 3],
   3: 104,
-  4: 111,
?        ^

+  4: 111}
?        ^

-  5: 110}

Where:

• '-' indicates key/values in the first but not second dict
• '+' indicates key/values in the second but not the first dict

Like in unittest, the only caveat is that the final mapping can be thought to be a diff, due to the trailing comma/bracket.