Accessing dict_keys element by index in Python3

Not a full answer but perhaps a useful hint. If it is really the first item you want*, then

next(iter(q))

is much faster than

list(q)[0]

for large dicts, since the whole thing doesn't have to be stored in memory.

For 10.000.000 items I found it to be almost 40.000 times faster.

*The first item in case of a dict being just a pseudo-random item before Python 3.6 (after that it's ordered in the standard implementation, although it's not advised to rely on it).

Call list() on the dictionary instead:

keys = list(test)

In Python 3, the dict.keys() method returns a dictionary view object, which acts as a set. Iterating over the dictionary directly also yields keys, so turning a dictionary into a list results in a list of all the keys:

>>> test = {'foo': 'bar', 'hello': 'world'}
>>> list(test)
['foo', 'hello']
>>> list(test)[0]
'foo'

Python 3

mydict = {'a': 'one', 'b': 'two', 'c': 'three'}
mykeys = [*mydict]          #list of keys
myvals = [*mydict.values()] #list of values

print(mykeys)
print(myvals)

Output

['a', 'b', 'c']
['one', 'two', 'three']

Also see this detailed answer