# Adding elements to dictionaries?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/adding-elements-to-dictionaries/49670
**Category:** New to Julia
**Tags:** dictionary
**Created:** [November 6, 2020, 8:17am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/adding-elements-to-dictionaries/49670 "2020-11-06T08:17:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BLI](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BLI)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2020, 8:17am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/adding-elements-to-dictionaries/49670/1 "2020-11-06T08:17:49Z")
Suppose I have a dictionary `d = Dict("a"=->(1,2,3))` and I want to add an element with key `"b"` to the dictionary. The following works:
```julia
merge!(d,Dict("b"=>(4,5,6)))
```
However, this only seems to work if the value of the key has the same “type”. In other words, the following _fails_:
```julia
merge!(d, Dict("b"=>(7,9)))
```
because the value tuple has 2 elements instead of 3.
On the other hand, creating both elements at the same time works:
```julia
d = Dict("a"=>(1,2,3), "b"=>(7,9))
```
**Question** : is there/what is a more flexible method to add elements to a dictionary than the `merge!` method?
---
### Author:  [@fredrikekre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fredrikekre)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2020, 8:40am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/adding-elements-to-dictionaries/49670/2 "2020-11-06T08:40:24Z")
You have to construct the original dictionary `d` with this flexibility in mind, for example
```julia
d = Dict{String,Any}("a"=->(1,2,3))
```
would allow values of type `String` as dictionary keys and `Any`thing as dictionary values.
---
### Author:  [@oheil](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/oheil)
#### Post date: [November 6, 2020, 8:43am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/adding-elements-to-dictionaries/49670/3 "2020-11-06T08:43:22Z")
> [@BLI](#):
>
> d = Dict(“a”=\>(1,2,3))
creates a specific dictionary where keys are `String` and values are exactly `Tuple{Int64,Int64,Int64}}`, thats why you get an error if you try to add a value which is `Tuple{Int64,Int64}}`.
The line
> [@BLI](#):
>
> `d = Dict("a"=>(1,2,3), "b"=>(7,9))`
gives you the hint on how you could do it:
```julia
julia> d = Dict("a"=>(1,2,3), "b"=>(7,9))
Dict{String,Tuple{Int64,Int64,Vararg{Int64,N} where N}} with 2 entries:
"b" => (7, 9)
"a" => (1, 2, 3)
```
See the type definition printed out. With that you can define the Dict like:
```julia
d=Dict{String,Tuple{Int64,Vararg{Int64,N} where N}}()
```
Which accepts any tuple:
```julia
julia> d["a"]=(1,2,3)
(1, 2, 3)
julia> d["b"]=(7,9)
(7, 9)
```
This is the way to assign new key,value pairs, no need for `merge!`.
Or (as ninja’d above 🙂 ) use `Any`.
But use the correct syntax: not `=->` , but `=>`