Dictionaries

A dict stores key → value pairs. Think of it as one row where the keys are column names. A list of dicts is a whole table, and it's exactly what most APIs send back.

python

order = {"id": 1042, "amount": 499, "city": "Pune"}

print(order["city"])

order["status"] = "paid"       # add a new key

print(order.get("coupon"))     # missing key, no crash

for key, value in order.items():

    print(key, value)

OUTPUT

Pune None id 1042 amount 499 city Pune status paid

Reading values safely

order["coupon"] crashes with a KeyError when the key doesn't exist. order.get("coupon") returns None instead, and order.get("coupon", 0) lets you choose the fallback.

on the job API payloads often leave out fields. Reading them with .get() and a sensible default stops one incomplete record from failing the whole load.