Why to use get(key) instead of [key] for Python Dictionary?
Accessing value from a dictionary using square brackets will raise an exception if there is no value mapped to that key, here is an example >>> dict = {'key1':1,'key2':2} >>> dict['key1'] 1 >>> dict['key3'] Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in dict['key3'] KeyError: 'key3' On the other hand, 'get' will return the default value if there is no value mapped to that key, the default value is 'None' by default >>> dict = {'key1':1,'key2':2} >>> dict['key1'] 1 >>> a = dict.get('key3) >>> print a 0 To set a custom default value >>> a = dict.get('key3', 'MyCustomValue')