Rename a dictionary key

Question

Is there a way to rename a dictionary key, without reassigning its value to a new name and removing the old name key; and without iterating through dict key/value?

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Answer 1

In Python 3.6 (onwards?) I would go for the following one-liner

test = {'a': 1, 'old': 2, 'c': 3}
old_k = 'old'
new_k = 'new'
new_v = 4  # optional

print(dict((new_k, new_v) if k == old_k else (k, v) for k, v in test.items()))

which produces

{'a': 1, 'new': 4, 'c': 3}

May be worth noting that without the print statement the ipython console/jupyter notebook present the dictionary in an order of their choosing...