# Initialize Dict to enable values of different type
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initialize-dict-to-enable-values-of-different-type/91153
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** dictionary
**Created:** [December 2, 2022, 5:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initialize-dict-to-enable-values-of-different-type/91153 "2022-12-02T17:25:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ellocco](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ellocco)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2022, 5:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initialize-dict-to-enable-values-of-different-type/91153/1 "2022-12-02T17:25:51Z")
What is the reason that case 3 fails? And how to avoid this?
How can I initialize a Dict to enable values of different type?
Here is my snippet:
```julia
function MyDictFill(_a::Dict = Dict())
if ~haskey(_a, "a")
_a["a"] = true
end
if ~haskey(_a, "b")
_a["b"] = 1.0
end
if ~haskey(_a, "c")
_a["c"] = "str"
end
return _a
end
# case 1: ok
MyDictFill()
# case 2: ok
begin
dict_a = Dict()
dict_a["d"] = "star"
dict_a["e"] = 1
dict_a["f"] = true
MyDictFill(dict_a)
end
# case 3: fails
begin
dict_b = Dict()
dict_b = Dict("d" => 2)
dict_b = Dict("f" => "julia")
MyDictFill(dict_b)
end
```
---
### Author:  [@p-gw](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/p-gw)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2022, 5:33pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initialize-dict-to-enable-values-of-different-type/91153/2 "2022-12-02T17:33:33Z")
What behaviour do you expect exactly?
The third case fails because you define `dict_b` 3 times.
The last call gives you
```julia
julia> dict_b = Dict("f" => "julia")
Dict{String, String} with 1 entry:
"f" => "julia"
```
If you fill a `Dict{String, String}` with non-string values, you will get a `MethodError`.
You could initialize the Dict with value type `Any` instead.
```julia
julia> dict_b = Dict{String,Any}("f" => "julia")
Dict{String, Any} with 1 entry:
"f" => "julia"
julia> MyDictFill(dict_b)
Dict{String, Any} with 4 entries:
"f" => "julia"
"c" => "str"
"b" => 1.0
"a" => true
```
---
### Author:  [@ellocco](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ellocco)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2022, 5:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initialize-dict-to-enable-values-of-different-type/91153/3 "2022-12-02T17:37:25Z")
> [@p-gw](#):
>
> What behaviour do you expect exactly?
Thanks, now I see my mistake. Thanks a lot! 🙂
---
### Author:  [@ellocco](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ellocco)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2022, 9:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/initialize-dict-to-enable-values-of-different-type/91153/4 "2022-12-03T09:53:44Z")
Here some other examples of Dict initialization:
```julia
dict_b = Dict{String, Union{Nothing, String, Bool, Number}}("a" => "Julia", "b" => true, "c" => 10.0, "n" => nothing)
isnothing(dict_b["n"])
dict_c = Dict{Bool, String}(true => "Julia", false => "Romeo")
dict_c[true]
dict_d = Dict{Int, String}(1 => "one", 2 => "two", 3 => "three")
dict_d[1]
for (_k, _v) in dict_d
println("#", _k, ": ", _v)
end
for _i = 1:length(dict_d) # eachindex() does not work here
println("#", _i, ": ", dict_d[_i])
end
```