Python program to find the sum of all items in a dictionary

In this article, we will learn different approaches to calculate the sum of all values in a dictionary. Python provides several methods to iterate through dictionary values and compute their total.

Problem statement ? We are given a dictionary, and we need to calculate the sum of all its values.

Here are four effective approaches to solve this problem ?

Method 1: Using Dictionary Items Iteration

This approach iterates through dictionary items and accesses values using keys ?

# sum function
def calculate_sum(my_dict):
    total = 0
    for key in my_dict:
        total = total + my_dict[key]
    return total

# Driver Function
data = {'A': 10, 'B': 20, 'C': 30, 'D': 40}
print("Sum of dictionary values:", calculate_sum(data))
Sum of dictionary values: 100

Method 2: Using Dictionary Values() Method

This approach directly iterates through dictionary values using the values() method ?

# sum function
def calculate_sum(my_dict):
    total = 0
    for value in my_dict.values():
        total = total + value
    return total

# Driver Function
data = {'A': 10, 'B': 20, 'C': 30, 'D': 40}
print("Sum of dictionary values:", calculate_sum(data))
Sum of dictionary values: 100

Method 3: Using Dictionary Keys() Method

This approach iterates through dictionary keys and accesses values using key indexing ?

# sum function
def calculate_sum(my_dict):
    total = 0
    for key in my_dict.keys():
        total = total + my_dict[key]
    return total

# Driver Function
data = {'A': 10, 'B': 20, 'C': 30, 'D': 40}
print("Sum of dictionary values:", calculate_sum(data))
Sum of dictionary values: 100

Method 4: Using Built-in sum() Function

The most Pythonic approach uses the built-in sum() function with values() ?

# Using built-in sum function
data = {'A': 10, 'B': 20, 'C': 30, 'D': 40}
total = sum(data.values())
print("Sum of dictionary values:", total)
Sum of dictionary values: 100

Comparison

Method Readability Performance Best For
Items iteration Good Medium When you need both keys and values
values() iteration Good Fast Direct access to values
keys() iteration Good Medium When you need key-based logic
Built-in sum() Excellent Fastest Simple sum calculations

Conclusion

The built-in sum() function with values() is the most efficient and readable approach. Use manual iteration methods when you need additional processing logic during summation.

Updated on: 2026-03-25T07:02:15+05:30

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