Covert string from file into already-made dictionary

Question

What I'm trying to do, is backup a dictionary into a text file. This is what my code looks like so far:

with open("dict.txt","r") as dict_file:
    text = dict_file.read()
    my_dict = text

Of course, this makes a variable called 'my_dict' but saves what is in the text file as a string.

Inside the text file, I have this:

{"test":["test0","test1"],"dict":["dict0","dict1","dict2"]}

If you are wondering why I'm doing this, it is for a challenge I am doing with my friends where we have to make a user-database thing with importing and exporting users to a text file.

Possible duplicate of [Writing a dict to txt file and reading it back?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11026959/writing-a-dict-to-txt-file-and-reading-it-back) — jpp, Mar 29 '18 at 10:42

Rakesh · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-29T11:39:32.293

2

You can use the ast module to convert the sting object to a dictionary.

Ex:

import ast
d = '{"test":["test0","test1"],"dict":["dict0","dict1","dict2"]}'
print(ast.literal_eval(d))

Output:

{"test":["test0","test1"],"dict":["dict0","dict1","dict2"]}

Or you can use the JSON module.

Ex:

import json
with open("dict.txt","r") as dict_file:
    text = json.load(dict_file)

edited Mar 29 '18 at 11:39

answered Mar 29 '18 at 10:37

Rakesh

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Decoding JSON string using literal_eval is definitely not the preferred way. That's what the json module is for. – Taku Mar 29 '18 at 10:53
`json.load` is for file. `json.loads` is for string. – stamaimer Mar 29 '18 at 10:59

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 29 '18 at 10:57

0

import json
with open("dict.txt", 'r') as dict_file:
    my_dict = json.load(dict_file)

answered Mar 29 '18 at 10:57

stamaimer

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Thanks for posting an answer. It's always good practice to add some additional comments to your answer and why it solves the problem, rather than just posting a code snippet. – sebs Mar 29 '18 at 13:55

Covert string from file into already-made dictionary

2 Answers2