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'in' is the intended way to test for the existence of a key in a dict.
d = {"key1": 10, "key2": 23}
if "key1" in d:
print("this will execute")
if "nonexistent key" in d:
print("this will not")
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dct.get(key, 'ham') # will return dct[key] or 'ham' but never stores anything