Calculate difference in keys contained in two Python dictionaries

Question

Suppose I have two Python dictionaries - dictA and dictB. I need to find out if there are any keys which are present in dictB but not

Answer 1

As Alex Martelli wrote, if you simply want to check if any key in B is not in A, any(True for k in dictB if k not in dictA) would be the way to go.

To find the keys that are missing:

diff = set(dictB)-set(dictA) #sets

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\thc>python -m timeit -s "dictA =    
dict(zip(range(1000),range
(1000))); dictB = dict(zip(range(0,2000,2),range(1000)))" "diff=set(dictB)-set(dictA)"
10000 loops, best of 3: 107 usec per loop

diff = [ k for k in dictB if k not in dictA ] #lc

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\thc>python -m timeit -s "dictA = 
dict(zip(range(1000),range
(1000))); dictB = dict(zip(range(0,2000,2),range(1000)))" "diff=[ k for k in dictB if
k not in dictA ]"
10000 loops, best of 3: 95.9 usec per loop

So those two solutions are pretty much the same speed.