python - Neat way of popping key, value PAIR from dictionary? -

pop great little function that, when used on dictionaries (given known key) removes item key dictionary , returns corresponding value. if want key well?

obviously, in simple cases this:

pair = (key, some_dict.pop(key)) 

but if, say, wanted pop key-value pair lowest value, following above idea have this...

pair = (min(some_dict, key=some.get), some_dict.pop(min(some_dict, key=some_dict.get))) 

... hideous have operation twice (obviously store output min in variable, i'm still not happy that). question is: there elegant way this? missing obvious trick here?

you can define dictionary object using python abcs provides infrastructure defining abstract base classes. , overload pop attribute of python dictionary objects based on need:

from collections import mapping  class mydict(mapping):     def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):         self.update(dict(*args, **kwargs))      def __setitem__(self, key, item):          self.__dict__[key] = item      def __getitem__(self, key):          return self.__dict__[key]      def __delitem__(self, key):          del self.__dict__[key]      def pop(self, k, d=none):         return k,self.__dict__.pop(k, d)      def update(self, *args, **kwargs):         return self.__dict__.update(*args, **kwargs)      def __iter__(self):         return iter(self.__dict__)      def __len__(self):         return len(self.__dict__)      def __repr__(self):          return repr(self.__dict__) 

demo:

d=mydict()  d['a']=1 d['b']=5 d['c']=8  print d {'a': 1, 'c': 8, 'b': 5}  print d.pop(min(d, key=d.get)) ('a', 1)  print d {'c': 8, 'b': 5} 

note : @chepner suggested in comment better choice can override popitem, returns key/value pair.