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POCreating a tree/deeply nested dict from an indented text file in python
 

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  1. POCreating a tree/deeply nested dict from an indented text file in python
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    <p>Basically, I want to iterate through a file and put the contents of each line into a deeply nested dict, the structure of which is defined by the amount of whitespace at the start of each line.</p> <p>Essentially the aim is to take something like this:</p> <pre><code>a b c d e </code></pre> <p>And turn it into something like this:</p> <pre><code>{"a":{"b":"c","d":"e"}} </code></pre> <p>Or this:</p> <pre><code>apple colours red yellow green type granny smith price 0.10 </code></pre> <p>into this:</p> <pre><code>{"apple":{"colours":["red","yellow","green"],"type":"granny smith","price":0.10} </code></pre> <p>So that I can send it to Python's JSON module and make some JSON.</p> <p>At the moment I'm trying to make a dict and a list in steps like such:</p> <ol> <li><code>{"a":""} ["a"]</code></li> <li><code>{"a":"b"} ["a"]</code></li> <li><code>{"a":{"b":"c"}} ["a","b"]</code></li> <li><code>{"a":{"b":{"c":"d"}}}} ["a","b","c"]</code></li> <li><code>{"a":{"b":{"c":"d"},"e":""}} ["a","e"]</code></li> <li><code>{"a":{"b":{"c":"d"},"e":"f"}} ["a","e"]</code></li> <li><code>{"a":{"b":{"c":"d"},"e":{"f":"g"}}} ["a","e","f"]</code></li> </ol> <p>etc.</p> <p>The list acts like 'breadcrumbs' showing where I last put in a dict.</p> <p>To do this I need a way to iterate through the list and generate something like <code>dict["a"]["e"]["f"]</code> to get at that last dict. I've had a look at the AutoVivification class that someone has made which looks very useful however I'm really unsure of:</p> <ol> <li>Whether I'm using the right data structure for this (I'm planning to send it to the JSON library to create a JSON object)</li> <li>How to use AutoVivification in this instance</li> <li>Whether there's a better way in general to approach this problem.</li> </ol> <p>I came up with the following function but it doesn't work:</p> <pre><code>def get_nested(dict,array,i): if i != None: i += 1 if array[i] in dict: return get_nested(dict[array[i]],array) else: return dict else: i = 0 return get_nested(dict[array[i]],array) </code></pre> <p>Would appreciate help!</p> <p>(The rest of my extremely incomplete code is here:)</p> <pre><code>#Import relevant libraries import codecs import sys #Functions def stripped(str): if tab_spaced: return str.lstrip('\t').rstrip('\n\r') else: return str.lstrip().rstrip('\n\r') def current_ws(): if whitespacing == 0 or not tab_spaced: return len(line) - len(line.lstrip()) if tab_spaced: return len(line) - len(line.lstrip('\t\n\r')) def get_nested(adict,anarray,i): if i != None: i += 1 if anarray[i] in adict: return get_nested(adict[anarray[i]],anarray) else: return adict else: i = 0 return get_nested(adict[anarray[i]],anarray) #initialise variables jsondict = {} unclosed_tags = [] debug = [] vividfilename = 'simple.vivid' # vividfilename = sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv)&gt;2: jsfilename = sys.argv[2] else: jsfilename = vividfilename.split('.')[0] + '.json' whitespacing = 0 whitespace_array = [0,0] tab_spaced = False #open the file with codecs.open(vividfilename,'rU', "utf-8-sig") as vividfile: for line in vividfile: #work out how many whitespaces at start whitespace_array.append(current_ws()) #For first line with whitespace, work out the whitespacing (eg tab vs 4-space) if whitespacing == 0 and whitespace_array[-1] &gt; 0: whitespacing = whitespace_array[-1] if line[0] == '\t': tab_spaced = True #strip out whitespace at start and end stripped_line = stripped(line) if whitespace_array[-1] == 0: jsondict[stripped_line] = "" unclosed_tags.append(stripped_line) if whitespace_array[-2] &lt; whitespace_array[-1]: oldnested = get_nested(jsondict,whitespace_array,None) print oldnested # jsondict.pop(unclosed_tags[-1]) # jsondict[unclosed_tags[-1]]={stripped_line:""} # unclosed_tags.append(stripped_line) print jsondict print unclosed_tags print jsondict print unclosed_tags </code></pre>
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    1. COI have to quote the [Zen of Python](http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/) "Flat is better than nested." I would change how you are doing this. There is always a better way than nesting dictionaries. Also, make sure you aren't falling into an [X Y Problem](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem).
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      1. USInbar Rose
    2. COMy original way of doing it was pretty simply to generate a big long string using various rules. Would that be superior?
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      1. USTomcat
    3. COThat depends on what you are trying to achieve, take a look at the [X Y Problem](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem) and make sure you are not making a similar mistake. Essentially you need to figure out what you DATA is, and build your container around that, not build a container and figure out how to put your DATA into it. Each type of container has its advantages, but using a string to store different data sets is never a good idea.
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      1. USInbar Rose
 

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