CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonjsondictionaryyoutubetypeerror
Lourens
Lourens

Reputation: 104

TypeError: string indices must be integers // working with JSON as dict in python

Okay, so I've been banging my head on this for the last 2 days, with no real progress. I am a beginner with python and coding in general, but this is the first issue I haven't been able to solve myself.

So I have this long file with JSON formatting with about 7000 entries from the youtubeapi. right now I want to have a short script to print certain info ('videoId') for a certain dictionary key (refered to as 'key'):

My script:

import json

f = open ('path file.txt', 'r')
s = f.read()

trailers = json.loads(s)
print(trailers['key']['Items']['id']['videoId'])
# print(trailers['key']['videoId'] gives same response

Error:

print(trailers['key']['Items']['id']['videoId'])
TypeError: string indices must be integers

It does work when I want to print all the information for the dictionary key: This script works 

import json

f = open ('path file.txt', 'r')
s = f.read()

trailers = json.loads(s)
print(trailers['key'])

Also print(type(trailers)) results in class 'dict', as it's supposed to.

My JSON File is formatted like this and is from the youtube API, youtube#searchListResponse. 

{
 "kind": "youtube#searchListResponse",
 "etag": "",
 "nextPageToken": "",
 "regionCode": "",
 "pageInfo": {
  "totalResults": 1000000,
  "resultsPerPage": 1
 },
 "items": [
  {
   "kind": "youtube#searchResult",
   "etag": "",
   "id": {
    "kind": "youtube#video",
    "videoId": ""
   },
   "snippet": {
    "publishedAt": "",
    "channelId": "",
    "title": "",
    "description": "",
    "thumbnails": {
     "default": {
      "url": "",
      "width": 120,
      "height": 90
     },
     "medium": {
      "url": "",
      "width": 320,
      "height": 180
     },
     "high": {
      "url": "",
      "width": 480,
      "height": 360
     }
    },
    "channelTitle": "",
    "liveBroadcastContent": "none"
   }
  }
 ]
}

What other information is needed to be given for you to understand the problem?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 7970

Answers (3)

Bart Van Loon
Bart Van Loon

Reputation: 1510

The following code gives me all the videoId's from the provided sample data (which is no id's at all in fact):

import json

with open('sampledata', 'r') as datafile:
    data = json.loads(datafile.read())
print([item['id']['videoId'] for item in data['items']])

Perhaps you can try this with more data.

Hope this helps.

Upvotes: 2

Thomasedv
Thomasedv

Reputation: 402

I've not used json before at all. But it's basically imported in the form of dicts with more dicts, lists etc. Where applicable. At least from my understanding.

So when you do type(trailers) you get type dict. Then you do dict with trailers['key']. If you do type of that, it should also be a dict, if things work correctly. Working through the items in each dict should in the end find your error.

Pythons error says you are trying find the index/indices of a string, which only accepts integers, while you are trying to use a dict. So you need to find out why you are getting a string and not dict when using each argument.

Edit to add an example. If your dict contains a string on key 'item', then you get a string in return, not a new dict which you further can get a dict from. item in the json for example, seem to be a list, with dicts in it. Not a dict itself.

Upvotes: 0

Benson Chang
Benson Chang

Reputation: 23

I didn't really look into the youtube api but looking at the code and the sample you gave it seems you missed out a [0]. Looking at the structure of json there's a list in key items.

import json

f = open ('json1.json', 'r')
s = f.read()

trailers = json.loads(s)
print(trailers['items'][0]['id']['videoId'])

Upvotes: 0

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