What will happen if you attempt to access a key that does not exist in a Python dictionary?

When you attempt to access a key that does not exist in a Python dictionary, the language raises a KeyError. This is an intentional behavior designed to signal that the requested key cannot be found within the dictionary.

In a dictionary, each key is associated with a value, and the key must be present for successful access. If you try to retrieve a value using a non-existent key, Python does not assume you want to return a default or placeholder value; instead, it raises the KeyError to inform you that the key does not exist.

This behavior emphasizes the importance of checking whether a key is present in the dictionary before attempting to access it, ensuring developers handle missing keys appropriately, such as using the get() method which can provide a default value instead of raising an error, or checking for key existence with the in keyword.

The other options describe behaviors that do not occur when accessing missing keys in a dictionary. For instance, returning None or an empty string would imply some value handling that is not part of Python's dictionary access protocol, while returning a default value only happens if explicitly managed through appropriate methods.