Is there a difference between using a dict literal and a dict constructor?

Question

Using PyCharm, I noticed it offers to convert a dict literal:

d = {
    \'one\': \'1\',
    \'two\': \'2\',
}

Answer 1

They look pretty much the same on Python 3.2.

As gnibbler pointed out, the first doesn't need to lookup dict, which should make it a tiny bit faster.

>>> def literal():
...   d = {'one': 1, 'two': 2}
...
>>> def constructor():
...   d = dict(one='1', two='2')
...
>>> import dis
>>> dis.dis(literal)
  2           0 BUILD_MAP                2
              3 LOAD_CONST               1 (1)
              6 LOAD_CONST               2 ('one')
              9 STORE_MAP
             10 LOAD_CONST               3 (2)
             13 LOAD_CONST               4 ('two')
             16 STORE_MAP
             17 STORE_FAST               0 (d)
             20 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             23 RETURN_VALUE
>>> dis.dis(constructor)
  2           0 LOAD_GLOBAL              0 (dict)
              3 LOAD_CONST               1 ('one')
              6 LOAD_CONST               2 ('1')
              9 LOAD_CONST               3 ('two')
             12 LOAD_CONST               4 ('2')
             15 CALL_FUNCTION          512
             18 STORE_FAST               0 (d)
             21 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             24 RETURN_VALUE