Hi!
I'm new to python and just wrote this module level function:

def _interval(patt):
    """ Converts a string pattern of the form '1y 42d 14h56m'
    to a timedelta object.
    y - years (365 days), M - months (30 days), w - weeks, d - days,
    h - hours, m - minutes, s - seconds"""

    m = _re.findall(r'([+-]?\d*(?:\.\d+)?)([yMwdhms])', patt)

    args = {'weeks': 0.0,
            'days': 0.0,
            'hours': 0.0,
            'minutes': 0.0,
            'seconds': 0.0}

    for (n,q) in m:
        if q=='y':
            args['days'] += float(n)*365
        elif q=='M':
            args['days'] += float(n)*30
        elif q=='w':
            args['weeks'] += float(n)
        elif q=='d':
            args['days'] += float(n)
        elif q=='h':
            args['hours'] += float(n)
        elif q=='m':
            args['minutes'] += float(n)
        elif q=='s':
            args['seconds'] += float(n)

    return _dt.timedelta(**args)

My issue is with the for loop here i.e the long if elif block, and was wondering if there is a more pythonic way of doing it.
So I re-wrote the function as:

def _interval2(patt):

    m = _re.findall(r'([+-]?\d*(?:\.\d+)?)([yMwdhms])', patt)

    args = {'weeks': 0.0,
            'days': 0.0,
            'hours': 0.0,
            'minutes': 0.0,
            'seconds': 0.0}

    argsmap = {'y': ('days', lambda x: float(x)*365),
               'M': ('days', lambda x: float(x)*30),
               'w': ('weeks', lambda x: float(x)),
               'd': ('days', lambda x: float(x)),
               'h': ('hours', lambda x: float(x)),
               'm': ('minutes', lambda x: float(x)),
               's': ('seconds', lambda x: float(x))}

    for (n,q) in m:
        args[argsmap[q][0]] += argsmap[q][1](n)

    return _dt.timedelta(**args)

I tested the execution times of both the codes using timeit module and found that the second one took about 5-6 seconds longer (for the default number of repeats).

So my question is:
1. Which code is considered more pythonic?
2. Is there still a more pythonic was of writing this function?
3. What about the trade-offs between pythonicity and other aspects (like speed in this case) of programming?

p.s. I kinda have an OCD for elegant code.

EDITED _interval2 after seeing this answer:

argsmap = {'y': ('days', 365),
           'M': ('days', 30),
           'w': ('weeks', 1),
           'd': ('days', 1),
           'h': ('hours', 1),
           'm': ('minutes', 1),
           's': ('seconds', 1)}

for (n,q) in m:
    args[argsmap[q][0]] += float(n)*argsmap[q][1]