How to merge dictionaries of dictionaries?

Question

I need to merge multiple dictionaries, here\'s what I have for instance:

dict1 = {1:{\"a\":{A}}, 2:{\"b\":{B}}}

dict2 = {2:{\"c\":{C}}, 3:{\"d\":{D}}


        

Answer 1

How about another answer?!? This one also avoids mutation/side effects:

def merge(dict1, dict2):
    output = {}

    # adds keys from `dict1` if they do not exist in `dict2` and vice-versa
    intersection = {**dict2, **dict1}

    for k_intersect, v_intersect in intersection.items():
        if k_intersect not in dict1:
            v_dict2 = dict2[k_intersect]
            output[k_intersect] = v_dict2

        elif k_intersect not in dict2:
            output[k_intersect] = v_intersect

        elif isinstance(v_intersect, dict):
            v_dict2 = dict2[k_intersect]
            output[k_intersect] = merge(v_intersect, v_dict2)

        else:
            output[k_intersect] = v_intersect

    return output

dict1 = {1:{"a":{"A"}}, 2:{"b":{"B"}}}
dict2 = {2:{"c":{"C"}}, 3:{"d":{"D"}}}
dict3 = {1:{"a":{"A"}}, 2:{"b":{"B"},"c":{"C"}}, 3:{"d":{"D"}}}

assert dict3 == merge(dict1, dict2)

Answer 2

This should help in merging all items from dict2 into dict1:

for item in dict2:
    if item in dict1:
        for leaf in dict2[item]:
            dict1[item][leaf] = dict2[item][leaf]
    else:
        dict1[item] = dict2[item]

Please test it and tell us whether this is what you wanted.

EDIT:

The above mentioned solution merges only one level, but correctly solves the example given by OP. To merge multiple levels, the recursion should be used.

Answer 3

this is actually quite tricky - particularly if you want a useful error message when things are inconsistent, while correctly accepting duplicate but consistent entries (something no other answer here does....)

assuming you don't have huge numbers of entries a recursive function is easiest:

def merge(a, b, path=None):
    "merges b into a"
    if path is None: path = []
    for key in b:
        if key in a:
            if isinstance(a[key], dict) and isinstance(b[key], dict):
                merge(a[key], b[key], path + [str(key)])
            elif a[key] == b[key]:
                pass # same leaf value
            else:
                raise Exception('Conflict at %s' % '.'.join(path + [str(key)]))
        else:
            a[key] = b[key]
    return a

# works
print(merge({1:{"a":"A"},2:{"b":"B"}}, {2:{"c":"C"},3:{"d":"D"}}))
# has conflict
merge({1:{"a":"A"},2:{"b":"B"}}, {1:{"a":"A"},2:{"b":"C"}})

note that this mutates a - the contents of b are added to a (which is also returned). if you want to keep a you could call it like merge(dict(a), b).

agf pointed out (below) that you may have more than two dicts, in which case you can use:

reduce(merge, [dict1, dict2, dict3...])

where everything will be added to dict1.

[note - i edited my initial answer to mutate the first argument; that makes the "reduce" easier to explain]

ps in python 3, you will also need from functools import reduce

Answer 4

I have an iterative solution - works much much better with big dicts & a lot of them (for example jsons etc):

import collections


def merge_dict_with_subdicts(dict1: dict, dict2: dict) -> dict:
    """
    similar behaviour to builtin dict.update - but knows how to handle nested dicts
    """
    q = collections.deque([(dict1, dict2)])
    while len(q) > 0:
        d1, d2 = q.pop()
        for k, v in d2.items():
            if k in d1 and isinstance(d1[k], dict) and isinstance(v, dict):
                q.append((d1[k], v))
            else:
                d1[k] = v

    return dict1

note that this will use the value in d2 to override d1, in case they are not both dicts. (same as python's dict.update())

some tests:

def test_deep_update():
    d = dict()
    merge_dict_with_subdicts(d, {"a": 4})
    assert d == {"a": 4}

    new_dict = {
        "b": {
            "c": {
                "d": 6
            }
        }
    }
    merge_dict_with_subdicts(d, new_dict)
    assert d == {
        "a": 4,
        "b": {
            "c": {
                "d": 6
            }
        }
    }

    new_dict = {
        "a": 3,
        "b": {
            "f": 7
        }
    }
    merge_dict_with_subdicts(d, new_dict)
    assert d == {
        "a": 3,
        "b": {
            "c": {
                "d": 6
            },
            "f": 7
        }
    }

    # test a case where one of the dicts has dict as value and the other has something else
    new_dict = {
        'a': {
            'b': 4
        }
    }
    merge_dict_with_subdicts(d, new_dict)
    assert d['a']['b'] == 4

I've tested with around ~1200 dicts - this method took 0.4 seconds, while the recursive solution took ~2.5 seconds.

Answer 5

take a look at toolz package

import toolz
dict1={1:{"a":"A"},2:{"b":"B"}}
dict2={2:{"c":"C"},3:{"d":"D"}}
toolz.merge_with(toolz.merge,dict1,dict2)

gives

{1: {'a': 'A'}, 2: {'b': 'B', 'c': 'C'}, 3: {'d': 'D'}}

Answer 6

hey there I also had the same problem but I though of a solution and I will post it here, in case it is also useful for others, basically merging nested dictionaries and also adding the values, for me I needed to calculate some probabilities so this one worked great:

#used to copy a nested dict to a nested dict
def deepupdate(target, src):
    for k, v in src.items():
        if k in target:
            for k2, v2 in src[k].items():
                if k2 in target[k]:
                    target[k][k2]+=v2
                else:
                    target[k][k2] = v2
        else:
            target[k] = copy.deepcopy(v)

by using the above method we can merge:

target = {'6,6': {'6,63': 1}, '63,4': {'4,4': 1}, '4,4': {'4,3': 1}, '6,63': {'63,4': 1}}

src = {'5,4': {'4,4': 1}, '5,5': {'5,4': 1}, '4,4': {'4,3': 1}}

and this will become: {'5,5': {'5,4': 1}, '5,4': {'4,4': 1}, '6,6': {'6,63': 1}, '63,4': {'4,4': 1}, '4,4': {'4,3': 2}, '6,63': {'63,4': 1}}

also notice the changes here:

target = {'6,6': {'6,63': 1}, '6,63': {'63,4': 1}, '4,4': {'4,3': 1}, '63,4': {'4,4': 1}}

src = {'5,4': {'4,4': 1}, '4,3': {'3,4': 1}, '4,4': {'4,9': 1}, '3,4': {'4,4': 1}, '5,5': {'5,4': 1}}

merge = {'5,4': {'4,4': 1}, '4,3': {'3,4': 1}, '6,63': {'63,4': 1}, '5,5': {'5,4': 1}, '6,6': {'6,63': 1}, '3,4': {'4,4': 1}, '63,4': {'4,4': 1}, '4,4': {'4,3': 1, '4,9': 1}}

dont forget to also add the import for copy:

import copy