Return value from nested dictionary in Python

April 23, 2022

I’m trying to get values from a nested dict via user input. The problem is that the nested dictionaries have generic names (d1,d1, etc.). The user inputs, say, last name and the program returns the email.

I know this is basic, so I apologize in advance. This is what I have so far.

my_dict = {
    'd1':{
        'fname':'john',
        'lname':'doe',
        'age':'26',
        'email':'jdoe@mail.com'
    },
    'd2':{
        'fname':'mary',
        'lname':'jane',
        'age':'32',
        'email':'mjane@mail.com'
    }
}

lname = input("enter last name: ")

for emp in my_dict.items():
    print(emp)

Output:

enter last name: john
('d1', {'fname': 'john', 'lname': 'doe', 'age': '26', 'email': 'jdoe@mail.com'})
('d2', {'fname': 'mary', 'lname': 'jane', 'age': '32', 'email': 'mjane@mail.com'})

>Solution :

This is a function that takes a last name as input, then iterates over each dictionary (key, value) pair and returns the email as soon as there is a match:

def get_email_from_last_name(last_name):
    for k, v in my_dict.items():
        if v['lname'] == lname:
            return v['email']

lname = input("enter last name: ")
email = get_email_from_last_name(lname)
print(email)

prints: