set a key without value for a dictionary in python

Question

I am trying to set a dictionary for the staff's salary in Python. I want to create two functions, getname() and getsalary() so I tried:

empDic={}

def setname(n):

empDic={'n':''}

And then in python interactive 2.7 I typed:

>>>setname('marson')

>>>print empDic

{}

The result is still an empty dictionary, How can I deal with that?

Your indentation is wrong. In any case, the empDic inside the function will create a local variable. To use/update the global one, you need to use the `global` keyword. Also, dictionaries with only keys are usually a sign that you need `set`s instead. — Noufal Ibrahim, May 15 '15 at 14:24
Not sure the dupe is a great fit for this, using global is not going to work and there are more things wrong in the OP's code than scope issues — Padraic Cunningham, May 15 '15 at 14:36

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered May 15 '15 at 14:25

You would need to modify the original dict:

empDic={}

def setname(d, n):
   d[n] = ""

setname(empDic,"marson")

print(empDic)
{'marson': ''}

You are creating a new local variable empDic in your function, you are also using a string "n" not the name n passed in to the function.

1 Answers1