learn python the hard way exercise 40 help

Question

hey guys i am having trouble understanding this, i dont get when themap is referenced to the cities dict really. or the last line, what is the(cities, state) part?

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Answer 1

cities['_find'] is exactly find_city. So cities['_find'](cities, state) is the same as find_city(cities, state).

The reason for my first statement is this line:

cities['_find'] = find_city

That doesn't call find_city, it sticks the function itself in the dictionary. Python functions are just objects like lists and class instances. If you don't put parentheses after them, they can be assigned to variables.