How to prevent breaking of a string into a character list?

Question

I have a list that could contain 1 or many elements. The code below works fine if it has multiple elements in the list. However, if there is only one element, it breaks it into character list.

my_dict = {fruit: ['apple', 'banana', 'carrot']}

li = my_dict.get('fruit')

for fruit in li:
    print fruit

Answer 1

Even when there is only one element, it will be treated as a single item in a list as long as you enclose it in square brackets. So this:

my_dict = {'fruit': ['apple']}

will work as you expect, while this:

my_dict = {'fruit': 'apple'}

will not.

(Also, the names of your dictionary keys (e.g. fruit) should be quoted, since they're not variables.)