Update dictionary with nested dictionary

Question

I have this json file used to list material by ref -> color and size:

{
    "base": {
        "ref": {
            "3021000": {
                "color": {
                    "bleu azur": {
                        "size": {
                            "01": "3021000-80300-01",
                            "13": "3021000-80300-13",
                            "12": "3021000-80300-12",
                            "36": "3021000-80300-36"
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "customer_ref": {}
    }
}

With a program I will load the json as a dict and search the dict to try and find the full ref corresponding to the value of a size (the full ref for the material 3021000 bleu azur 01 is 3021000-80300-01

It's working like a charm, but now, if I have a material with: ref=3021000, color=blanc and size=01, it doesn't exist in the dict, so I would like to insert the missing key - value: {"blanc": {"size": {"01": "corresponding full ref"}}}

I tried this:

ref = "3021000"
color = "blanc"
size = "01"
full_ref = "corresponding full ref"
missing_data = {ref: {"color": {color: {"size": {size: full_ref}}}}}
data["base"]["ref"] = missing_data

but it overwrite the dictionary; what I would like is to update the dictionary, not overwrite it.

Answer 1

How about this?

import json

d = {
    "base": {
        "ref": {
            "3021000": {
                "color": {
                    "bleu azur": {
                        "size": {
                            "01": "3021000-80300-01",
                            "13": "3021000-80300-13",
                            "12": "3021000-80300-12",
                            "36": "3021000-80300-36"
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "customer_ref": {}
    }
}

ref = "3021000"
color = "blanc"
size = "01"
full_ref = "corresponding full ref"
missing_data = {color: {"size": {size: full_ref}}}
d["base"]["ref"][ref]["color"].update(missing_data)
print(json.dumps(d, indent=2))

Output:

{
  "base": {
    "ref": {
      "3021000": {
        "color": {
          "bleu azur": {
            "size": {
              "01": "3021000-80300-01",
              "13": "3021000-80300-13",
              "12": "3021000-80300-12",
              "36": "3021000-80300-36"
            }
          },
          "blanc": {
            "size": {
              "01": "corresponding full ref"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "customer_ref": {}
  }
}