Python Dictionary items()

The syntax of items() method is:

dictionary.items()

The items() method is similar to dictionary's viewitems() method in Python 2.7

items() Parameters

The items() method doesn't take any parameters.

Return value from items()

The items() method returns a view object that displays a list of a given dictionary's (key, value) tuple pair.

Example 1: Get all items of a dictionary with items()

# random sales dictionary
sales = { 'apple': 2, 'orange': 3, 'grapes': 4 }

print(sales.items())

When you run the program, the output will be:

dict_items([('apple', 2), ('orange', 3), ('grapes', 4)])

Example 2: How items() works when a dictionary is modified?

# random sales dictionary
sales = { 'apple': 2, 'orange': 3, 'grapes': 4 }

items = sales.items()
print('Original items:', items)

# delete an item from dictionary
del[sales['apple']]
print('Updated items:', items)

When you run the program, the output will be:

Original items: dict_items([('apple', 2), ('orange', 3), ('grapes', 4)])
Updated items: dict_items([('orange', 3), ('grapes', 4)])

The view object items doesn't itself return a list of sales items but it returns a view of sales's (key, value) pair.

If the list is updated at any time, the changes are reflected on to the view object itself, as shown in the above program.