CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonjsondictionary
Richard
Richard

Reputation: 1590

python JSON to dict check if single or multiple children

I am using python2.7 and receive dynamically a JSON string that I need to parse.

The resulting dict looks as follows"

{ u'queueId': u'channel.presence' u'name': u'presence.message' u'timestamp': 1467756404358 u'webhookId': u'U3P3Xw' u'serial': u'e7da73f968767379:37' u'data': {
u'channelId': u'private-cc-259970d91ab44af38393130e95de7057' u'site': u'eu-central-1-A' u'presence': {
u'action': u'enter' u'connectionId': u'LA84hfOd_w' u'data': u'a012a914cce6096c4a02a29da51dbc58' u'clientId': u'a012a914cce6096c4a02a29da51dbc58' } } }, { u'queueId': u'channel.presence' u'name': u'presence.message' u'timestamp': 1467756452665 u'webhookId': u'U3P3Xw' u'serial': u'e7da73f968767379:40' u'data': {
u'channelId': u'private-a012a914cce6096c4a02a29da51dbc58' u'site': u'eu-central-1-A' u'presence': [ { u'timestamp': 1467756404550 u'connectionId': u'LA84hfOd_w' u'clientId': u'a012a914cce6096c4a02a29da51dbc58' u'action': 3 u'data': u'a012a914cce6096c4a02a29da51dbc58' u'id': u'LA84hfOd_w-2:0' } ] } },

As you can see from the example data the [data][presence] can have either just a single object or multiple objects.

My testing for that fails utterly with the exception:

Error: list indices must be integers, not str

My code: for ji in json_data['items']: channel_id = ji['data']['channelId'] logger.debug("ChannelID: %s" % channel_id) found_special_case = False if len(ji['data']['presence']) > 1 : for ch in ji['data']['presence']: ...

Unfortunatly the check len(ji['data']['presence']) > 1 is also true when there is only one item. In that case ch becomes 'action' instead of the child item.

How can I check whether there is a single or several items in a dictionary?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2366

Answers (1)

alecxe
alecxe

Reputation: 473863

You can use isinstance() to determine if the item is a list or not:

presence = ji['data']['presence']
if isinstance(presence, list):
    # ...

Though, if I understand you correctly, this is the logic you are looking for:

presence = ji['data']['presence']
if isinstance(presence, dict):  # or: if not isinstance(presence, list):
    presence = [presence]

for ch in presence:
    # ...

Upvotes: 4

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