Convert Dictionary Values to Strings in Python

A dictionary in Python is an unordered collection of key-value pairs. It is a data structure that allows you to store and retrieve values based on a unique key associated with each value. Keys in a dictionary are used to uniquely identify values, and they must be immutable, such as strings, numbers, or tuples. On the other hand, the associated values in a dictionary can be of any data type and can be mutable.

When we want to convert a dictionary values to strings, we need to iterate over the dictionary using a loop and convert each value to a string individually using the str() function. 

Input Output Scenarios

See the following input-output scenarios to understand the concept of converting the dictionary values to strings.

Input dictionary: {'red': 3, 'yellow': 2, 'green': 3}
Output convered dictionary: {'red': '3', 'yellow': '2', 'green': '3'}

The Output convered dictionary contains the original keys and their corresponding values converted to strings.

Input dictionary:
{'k1': 12, 'numbers': [1, 2, 3], 'tuple of numbers': (10, 11, 2)}
 
Output convered dictionary:
{'k1': '12', 'numbers': '[1, 2, 3]', 'tuple of numbers': '(10, 11, 2)'}

In the converted dictionary, the values integer 12, list [1, 2, 3], and tuple (10, 11, 2) are converted to strings '12', '[1, 2, 3]', and '(10, 11, 2)'.

In this article, we will see different approaches to converting the dictionary values to strings.

Using a for loop

In this approach, we will update the original dictionary with the converted values to strings. We will iterate over the original dictionary using the items() method in a for loop, and for each value, we convert the value to a string using the str() function.

Example

Here's an example, to convert dictionary values to strings using the str() function and a for loop.

# Create the dictionary 
dictionary = {'red': 3, 'yellow': 2, 'green': 3}
print('Input dictionary:', dictionary)

for key, value in dictionary.items():
    dictionary[key] = str(value)
    
# Display the output
print('Output convered dictionary:', dictionary)

Output

Input dictionary: {'red': 3, 'yellow': 2, 'green': 3}
Output convered dictionary: {'red': '3', 'yellow': '2', 'green': '3'}

Using the dictionary comprehension

Same as previous approach, here we will create a new dictionary called converted_dict using dictionary comprehension. We will iterate over the original dictionary using the items() method, and for each key-value pair, we convert the value to a string using the str() function. The resulting key-value pair is then added to the converted_dict.

Example

Here's an example, to convert dictionary values to strings using dictionary comprehension.

# Create the dictionary 
dictionary = {'k1': 123, 'numbers': [1, 2, 3], 'tuple of numbers': (10, 11, 2)}
print('Input dictionary:')
print(dictionary)

converted_dict = {key: str(value) for key, value in dictionary.items()}

# Display the output
print('Output convered dictionary:')
print(converted_dict)

Output

Input dictionary:
{'k1': 123, 'numbers': [1, 2, 3], 'tuple of numbers': (10, 11, 2)}
Output convered dictionary:
{'k1': '123', 'numbers': '[1, 2, 3]', 'tuple of numbers': '(10, 11, 2)'}

Using the join() method

In this approach, we are going to convert the dictionary values into a single string. Here we are using the .join() method to concatenate all the values together into a single string. The expression "".join() specifies an empty string as the separator between the values.

Example

Here is an example of converting the dictionary values into a single string.

# Create the dictionary 
dictionary = {1:'t', 2:'u', 3:'t', 4:'o', 5:'r', 6:'i', 7:'a', 8:'l', 9:'s', 10:'p', 11:'o', 12:'i', 13:'n', 14:'t'}
print('Input dictionary:')
print(dictionary)

converted_dict = "".join(v for _,v in dictionary.items())

# Display the output
print('Output convered string:')
print(converted_dict)

Output

Input dictionary:
{1: 't', 2: 'u', 3: 't', 4: 'o', 5: 'r', 6: 'i', 7: 'a', 8: 'l', 9: 's', 10: 'p', 11: 'o', 12: 'i', 13: 'n', 14: 't'}
Output convered string:
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