Add new keys to a dictionary?

Question

Is it possible to add a key to a Python dictionary after it has been created? It doesn't seem to have an `.add()` method.

Answer 1

You can also just use the square bracket notation:

my_dict = {}

my_dict['square'] = 'brackets'

my_dict['curly'] = 'braces'

print(my_dict['square']) # brackets

Answer 2

It can be done fairly easily using the update method. If you have the dictionary

dict1 = {'firstKey' : 'blank1' , 'secondKey' : 'blank2'}

You can add by doing this

dict1.update({'thirdKey' : 'blank3'})

This also works if you want to combine two dictionaries by doing something like

dict1.update(dict2)