Accessing elements of Python dictionary by index

Question

Consider a dict like

mydict = {
  'Apple': {'American':'16', 'Mexican':10, 'Chinese':5},
  'Grapes':{'Arabian':'25','Indian':'20'} }

How do I access for instance a particular element of this dictionary? for instance, I would like to print the first element after some formatting the first element of Apple which in our case is 'American' only?

Additional information The above data structure was created by parsing an input file in a python function. Once created however it remains the same for that run.

I am using this data structure in my function.

So if the file changes, the next time this application is run the contents of the file are different and hence the contents of this data structure will be different but the format would be the same. So you see I in my function I don't know that the first element in Apple is 'American' or anything else so I can't directly use 'American' as a key.

Answer 1

Given that it is a dictionary you access it by using the keys. Getting the dictionary stored under "Apple", do the following:

>>> mydict["Apple"]
{'American': '16', 'Mexican': 10, 'Chinese': 5}

And getting how many of them are American (16), do like this:

>>> mydict["Apple"]["American"]
'16'