python - Replace characters in string from dictionary mapping

Question

I'm pretty new to python, so forgive me if I am missing an obvious built-in function.

I have a dictionary mapping I generated like the following:

dictionary = dict(zip(restAlphaSet,list(item)))

where restAlphaSet it a string and list(item) is list converted iteration

I am trying to use this to replace all the characters in my string. I found a replaceAll function online that looks like the following:

def replace_all(text, dic):
for i, j in dic.iteritems():
    if i != j:
        text = text.replace(i, j)
return text

Unfortunately, this is flawed as if the mapping has a->b, b->a, then nothing would get changed as the b's would be changed back to the a's.

I found the translate function, but it doesn't accept a dictionary input.

Answer 1

Translations are way faster.

>>> import string
>>> text.translate(string.maketrans("".join(restAlphaSet),"".join(item)))