I have a = [1,2,3,4] and I want d = {1:0, 2:0, 3:0, 4:0}
d = dict(zip(q,[0 for x in range(0,len(q))]))
works but is ugly. What's a cleaner way?
dict((el,0) for el in a) will work well.
Python 2.7 and above also support dict comprehensions. That syntax is {el:0 for el in a}.
d = dict.fromkeys(a, 0)
a is the list, 0 is the default value. Pay attention not to set the default value to some mutable object (i.e. list or dict), because it will be one object used as value for every key in the dictionary (check here for a solution for this case). Numbers/strings are safe.