Ways to convert string to dictionary

Difficulty Level : Medium
Last Updated : 10 Jul, 2020

Dictionary is an unordered collection in Python which store data values like a map i.e., key:value pair. In order to convert a String into a dictionary, the stored string must be in such a way that key:value pair can be generated from it. This article demonstrates several ways of converting a string into a dictionary.

Method 1: Splitting a string to generate key:value pair of the dictionary
In this approach, the given string will be analysed and with the use of split() method, the string will be split in such a way that it generates the key:value pair for the creation of a dictionary.

Below is the implementation of the approach.

# Python implementation of converting
# a string into a dictionary
  
# initialising string 
str = " Jan = January; Feb = February; Mar = March"
  
# At first the string will be splitted
# at the occurence of ';' to divide items 
# for the dictionaryand then again splitting 
# will be done at occurence of '=' which
# generates key:value pair for each item
dictionary = dict(subString.split("=") for subString in str.split(";"))
  
# printing the generated dictionary
print(dictionary)

Output:

{' Feb ': ' February', ' Mar ': ' March', ' Jan ': ' January'}

Method 2: Using 2 strings to generate the key:value pair for the dictionary
In this approach, 2 different strings will be considered and one of them will be used to generate keys and another one will be used to generate values for the dictionary. After manipulating both the strings the dictionary items will be created using those key:value pair.

Below is the implementation of the approach.

# Python implementation of converting
# a string into a dictionary
  
# initialising first string
str1 = "Jan, Feb, March"
str2 = "January | February | March"
  
# splitting first string
# in order to get keys
keys = str1.split(", ")
  
# splitting second string
# in order to get values
values = str2.split("|")
  
# declaring the dictionary
dictionary = {}
  
# Assigning keys and its 
# corresponding values in
# the dictionary
for i in range(len(keys)):
    dictionary[keys[i]] = values[i]
  
# printing the generated dictionary
print(dictionary)

Output:

{'Jan': 'January ', 'Feb': ' February ', 'March': ' March'}

Method 3: Using zip() method to combine the key:value pair extracted from 2 string
In this approach, again 2 strings will be used, one for generating keys and another for generating values for the dictionary. When all the keys and values are stored, zip() method will be used to create key:value pair and thus generating the complete dictionary.

Below is the implementation of the approach.

# Python implementation of converting
# a string into  a dictionary
  
# initialising first string
str1 = "Jan, Feb, March"
str2 = "January | February | March"
  
# splitting first string
# in order to get keys
keys = str1.split(", ")
  
# splitting second string
# in order to get values
values = str2.split("|")
  
# declaring the dictionary
dictionary = {}
  
# Merging all keys and values
# to generate items for
# the dictionary
dictionary = dict(zip(keys, values))
  
# printing the generated dictionary
print(dictionary)

Output:

{' March': ' March', 'Jan': 'January ', ' Feb': ' February '}

Method 4: If the string is itself in the form of string dictionary
In this approach, a string which is already in the form of string dictionary i.e., the string has a dictionary expression is converted into a dictionary using ast.literal_eval() method.

Below is the implementation of the approach.

# Python implementation of converting
# a string into  a dictionary
  
# importing ast module
import ast 
  
# initialising string dictionary 
str = '{"Jan" : "January", "Feb" : "February", "Mar" : "March"}'
  
# converting string into dictionary
dictionary = ast.literal_eval(str)
  
# printing the generated dictionary
print(dictionary)

Output:

{'Feb': 'February', 'Jan': 'January', 'Mar': 'March'}

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