Python – Symmetric Difference of Dictionaries

Given two Dictionaries, the task is to write a Python program to get the symmetric difference.

Examples:

Input : test_dict1 = {‘Gfg’ : 4, ‘is’ : 3, ‘best’ : 7, ‘for’ : 3, ‘geek’ : 4}, 

test_dict2 = {‘Gfg’ : 4, ‘is’ : 3, ‘good’ : 7, ‘for’ : 3, ‘all’ : 4}

Output : {‘all’: 4, ‘good’: 7, ‘best’: 7, ‘geek’: 4}

Explanation : all, good, best and geek are mutually unique keys.

Input : test_dict1 = {‘Gfg’ : 4, ‘is’ : 3, ‘good’ : 7, ‘for’ : 3, ‘geek’ : 4}, 

test_dict2 = {‘Gfg’ : 4, ‘is’ : 3, ‘good’ : 7, ‘for’ : 3, ‘all’ : 4}

Output : {‘all’: 4, ‘geek’: 4}

Explanation : all, geek are mutually unique keys.

Method #1 : Using ^ operator + keys() + dictionary comprehension

In this, We extract all the keys using keys(), and get symmetric difference of all the keys using ^ operator. The required dictionary is compiled using dictionary comprehension.

Python3

# Python3 code to demonstrate working of
# Symmetric Difference of Dictionaries
# Using ^ operator + keys() + dictionary comprehension

# initializing dictionaries
test_dict1 = {'Gfg': 4, 'is': 3, 'best': 7, 'for': 3, 'geek': 4}
test_dict2 = {'Gfg': 4, 'is': 3, 'good': 7, 'for': 3, 'all': 4}

# printing original dictionaries
print("The original dictionary 1 is : " + str(test_dict1))
print("The original dictionary 2 is : " + str(test_dict2))

# getting symmetric difference using ^ operation
res = {key: test_dict1[key] if key in test_dict1 else test_dict2[key]
       for key in test_dict1.keys() ^ test_dict2.keys()}

# printing result
print("The symmetric difference : " + str(res))

Output:

The original dictionary 1 is : {‘Gfg’: 4, ‘is’: 3, ‘best’: 7, ‘for’: 3, ‘geek’: 4}

The original dictionary 2 is : {‘Gfg’: 4, ‘is’: 3, ‘good’: 7, ‘for’: 3, ‘all’: 4}

The symmetric difference : {‘geek’: 4, ‘best’: 7, ‘all’: 4, ‘good’: 7}

Method #2 : Using set.symmetric_difference() + keys()

In this, we perform task of getting uncommon elements using inbuilt function symmetric_difference().

Python3

# Python3 code to demonstrate working of
# Symmetric Difference of Dictionaries
# Using set.symmetric_difference() + keys()

# initializing dictionaries
test_dict1 = {'Gfg': 4, 'is': 3, 'best': 7, 'for': 3, 'geek': 4}
test_dict2 = {'Gfg': 4, 'is': 3, 'good': 7, 'for': 3, 'all': 4}

# printing original dictionaries
print("The original dictionary 1 is : " + str(test_dict1))
print("The original dictionary 2 is : " + str(test_dict2))

# computing sym. difference using set inbuilt function
res = {key: test_dict1[key] if key in test_dict1 else test_dict2[key] for key in
       set(test_dict1.keys()).symmetric_difference(test_dict2.keys())}

# printing result
print("The symmetric difference : " + str(res))

Output:

The original dictionary 1 is : {‘Gfg’: 4, ‘is’: 3, ‘best’: 7, ‘for’: 3, ‘geek’: 4}

The original dictionary 2 is : {‘Gfg’: 4, ‘is’: 3, ‘good’: 7, ‘for’: 3, ‘all’: 4}

The symmetric difference : {‘good’: 7, ‘all’: 4, ‘geek’: 4, ‘best’: 7}