Reverse / invert a dictionary mapping

Question

Given a dictionary like so:

my_map = {\'a\': 1, \'b\': 2}

How can one invert this map to get:

inv_map = {1: \'a\', 2: \'b\'         


        

Answer 1

Not something completely different, just a bit rewritten recipe from Cookbook. It's futhermore optimized by retaining setdefault method, instead of each time getting it through the instance:

def inverse(mapping):
    '''
    A function to inverse mapping, collecting keys with simillar values
    in list. Careful to retain original type and to be fast.
    >> d = dict(a=1, b=2, c=1, d=3, e=2, f=1, g=5, h=2)
    >> inverse(d)
    {1: ['f', 'c', 'a'], 2: ['h', 'b', 'e'], 3: ['d'], 5: ['g']}
    '''
    res = {}
    setdef = res.setdefault
    for key, value in mapping.items():
        setdef(value, []).append(key)
    return res if mapping.__class__==dict else mapping.__class__(res)

Designed to be run under CPython 3.x, for 2.x replace mapping.items() with mapping.iteritems()

On my machine runs a bit faster, than other examples here