Dictionaries
7 Topics
1
Dictionary Basics
Creating and using dictionaries
Most important Python data structure — essential for all interviews
2
Dictionary Methods
get, keys, values, items, update
Essential methods — tests understanding of dict views and safe access patterns
3
Dictionary Comprehensions
Creating dicts with comprehension syntax
Shows Pythonic fluency — dict comprehensions are used extensively in production code
4
Nested Dictionaries
Dictionaries within dictionaries for hierarchical data
Essential for working with JSON, APIs, config files, and complex data structures
5
DefaultDict
Dictionaries with automatic default values for missing keys
Extremely common in coding interviews for counting, grouping, and graph algorithms
6
OrderedDict
Order-preserving dictionaries with order-dependent operations
Important for LRU cache design, understanding Python 3.7+ dict behavior, and legacy codebases
7
Counter
Specialized dictionary for counting hashable objects
Extremely common in interviews — anagrams, top-K, frequency analysis, and character problems