Return first N key:value pairs from dict

Question

Consider the following dictionary, d:

d = {\'a\': 3, \'b\': 2, \'c\': 3, \'d\': 4, \'e\': 5}

I want to return the first N key:value pairs f

Answer 1

Dictionary maintains no order , so before picking top N key value pairs lets make it sorted.

import operator
d = {'a': 3, 'b': 2, 'c': 3, 'd': 4}
d=dict(sorted(d.items(),key=operator.itemgetter(1),reverse=True))
#itemgetter(0)=sort by keys, itemgetter(1)=sort by values

Now we can do the retrieval of top 'N' elements:, using the method structure like this:

def return_top(elements,dictionary_element):
    '''Takes the dictionary and the 'N' elements needed in return
    '''
    topers={}
    for h,i in enumerate(dictionary_element):
        if h<elements:
            topers.update({i:dictionary_element[i]})
    return topers

to get the top 2 elements then simply use this structure:

d = {'a': 3, 'b': 2, 'c': 3, 'd': 4}
d=dict(sorted(d.items(),key=operator.itemgetter(1),reverse=True))
d=return_top(2,d)
print(d)