How do I navigate through a dictionary like this?

Question

I found the following dictionary:

catalog = {"threads":{"39894014":{"date":1390842451,"r":0,"i":0,"lr":  {"id":39894014},"semantic_url":"the-g-wiki-g-is-for-the-discussion-  of-technology","sticky":1,"closed":1,"capcode":"mod"}}

I know I could access "date" for example by writing data["threads"]["39894014"]["date"], but is there some way of skipping the second thing (["39894014"],) because this number is randomly generated so the list may change, and it would be a totally different number.

This is not Python syntax; `var` looks like JavaScript to me. — Martijn Pieters, Jul 28 '14 at 11:52
yes, because it is, I tried to access it through json (just ignore the var catalog) — IThelp, Jul 28 '14 at 11:53
If there are few entries inside that dictionary under the key `threads`, how do you tell which one you need? — bereal, Jul 28 '14 at 11:54
Then why include the `var` at all? Just focus on the issue of accessing the nested dictionary in Python, it doesn't matter how you loaded it. — Martijn Pieters, Jul 28 '14 at 11:54

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-28T13:42:45.407

0

You'll have to loop over the keys or values of the dictionary value of the 'threads' key; if there is only ever one thread in the dictionary, you can extract that one dictionary with:

thread = next(data['threads'].values())
print(thread['date'])

If you don't need the outer dictionary to remain pristine, you could just use dict.popitem() to unwrap:

threadid, thread = data['threads'].popitem()
print(thread['date'])

To get all entries you can loop and grab the dates:

all_dates = [thread['data'] for thread in data['threads'].values()]

edited Jul 28 '14 at 13:42

answered Jul 28 '14 at 11:53

Martijn Pieters

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TypeError: 'dict_values' object does not support indexing What did I do wrong? – IThelp Jul 28 '14 at 11:55
@IThelp: mea culpa, Python 2 vs. Python 3 tripping me up there. Corrected. – Martijn Pieters Jul 28 '14 at 11:56
Why not use `next(data['threads'].values())` – ThiefMaster Jul 28 '14 at 13:11
@ThiefMaster: Yeah, a better idea. – Martijn Pieters Jul 28 '14 at 13:42

How do I navigate through a dictionary like this?

1 Answers1