What does iterating over a dictionary in Python return?

Iterating over a dictionary in Python by default returns the dictionary's keys.

This behavior can be changed using special methods:

• dict.keys(): returns an iterator over the keys.
• dict.values(): returns an iterator over the values.
• dict.items(): returns an iterator over (key, value) tuples.

# Example of iterating over keys
my_dict = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}
for key in my_dict:
    print(key)

# Example of iterating over values
for value in my_dict.values():
    print(value)

# Example of iterating over key-value pairs
for key, value in my_dict.items():
    print(f"{key}: {value}")

Here is a table with examples:

Method	What it returns in each iteration	Usage example
(by default)	Key	for k in my_dict:
dict.keys()	Key	for k in my_dict.keys():
dict.values()	Value	for v in my_dict.values():
dict.items()	Tuple (key, value)	for k, v in my_dict.items():