A data-structure for 1:1 mappings in python?

Question

I have a problem which requires a reversable 1:1 mapping of keys to values.

That means sometimes I want to find the value given a key, but at other times I want to

Answer 1

It so happens that I find myself asking this question all the time (yesterday in particular). I agree with the approach of making two dictionaries. Do some benchmarking to see how much memory it's taking. I've never needed to make it mutable, but here's how I abstract it, if it's of any use:

class BiDict(list):
    def __init__(self,*pairs):
        super(list,self).__init__(pairs)
        self._first_access = {}
        self._second_access = {}
        for pair in pairs:
            self._first_access[pair[0]] = pair[1]
            self._second_access[pair[1]] = pair[0]
            self.append(pair)

    def _get_by_first(self,key):
        return self._first_access[key]

    def _get_by_second(self,key):
        return self._second_access[key]

    # You'll have to do some overrides to make it mutable
    # Methods such as append, __add__, __del__, __iadd__
    # to name a few will have to maintain ._*_access

class Constants(BiDict):
    # An implementation expecting an integer and a string
    get_by_name = BiDict._get_by_second
    get_by_number = BiDict._get_by_first

t = Constants(
        ( 1, 'foo'),
        ( 5, 'bar'),
        ( 8, 'baz'),
    )

>>> print t.get_by_number(5)
bar
>>> print t.get_by_name('baz')
8
>>> print t
[(1, 'foo'), (5, 'bar'), (8, 'baz')]