How to parse this special config file in python?

Question

I have some config files and the data format can't be changed.

One of them looks like this:

root {
  configuration {
    field_a: "aaaa"
    field_b: "bbbb"
  }
  child {
    configuration {
        field_a: "aaa1"
        field_b: "bbb1"
    }
  }
  child {
    configuration {
        field_a: "aaa2"
        field_b: "bbb2"
    }
  }
}

What i need is to parse the file and save it as JSON objects:

{root: 
    {field_a:"aaaa",field_b:"bbbb"},
    children: [{field_a:"aaa", field_b:"bbb"}, ... ]
}

Is there any way to make it possible ?

Answer 1

A quick thought:

if the config is well indented and lined as the example:

replace "{" and "}" s to make it like this:

root:
  configuration:
    field_a: "aaaa"
    field_b: "bbbb"
  child:
    configuration:
        field_a: "aaa"
        field_b: "bbb"

And now it's a yaml format file! just transform from yaml to json by all means!

import yaml
import json

s = "yamlstr"  # your yaml str
data = yaml.load(s)
jsondata = json.dumps(data)
print jsondata

UPDATE

As the fact that child is a list, and both "root", "configuration" and "child" seems to be keywords, change a bit and go for the workaround:

make this happen:

root:
  - configuration:
    field_a: "aaaa"
    field_b: "bbbb"
  - child:
    - configuration:
        field_a: "aaa1"
        field_b: "bbb1"
  - child:
    - configuration:
        field_a: "aaa2"
        field_b: "bbb2"

and output python dict would be:

{'root': [{'configuration': None, 'field_b': 'bbbb', 'field_a': 'aaaa'}, {'child': [{'configuration': {'field_b': 'bbb1', 'field_a': 'aaa1'}}]}, {'child': [{'configuration': {'field_b': 'bbb2', 'field_a': 'aaa2'}}]}]}

Now do some simple programming and make it your structure :-)

Answer 2

Your data format is unofficial-javascript-array. For great python, it's easy to parse them to python dict in 4 line of codes. Then use simplejson to parse to any json-format you like.

s = '''                                                                                                          
root {                                                                                                           
  configuration {                                                                                                
    field_a: "aaaa"                                                                                              
    field_b: "bbbb"                                                                                              
  }                                                                                                              
  child {                                                                                                        
    configuration {                                                                                              
        field_a: "aaa"                                                                                           
        field_b: "bbb"                                                                                           
    }                                                                                                            
  }                                                                                                              
}                                                                                                                
'''                                                                                                              

s = s.replace("{", ":{").replace("}", "},")                                                                      
s = "{%s}"%s                                                                                                     

import re                                                                                                        
s = re.sub(r'(\w+)"', r'\1",', s)                                                                                
s = re.sub(r"(\w+)\s*\:", r'"\1":', s)                                                                           
print "string:", s                                                                                               

d = eval(s)                                                                                                      
print "python dict:", d                                                                                          

import simplejson as json                                                                                        
print "json:", json.dumps(d)