How to iterate over dictionary while keeping the code clean and easy to read?

Question

Assume that I have data in a json-file that looks like this:

"params" : {
    "main" : { 
        "type_A":[
            [
                {"name" : "param1", "value" : 0.000005, "limits" : [0, 0.1],        "vary" : 1, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.2],   "use_limits": 1},
                {"name" : "param2", "value" : -0.00012, "limits" : [-0.1, 0.1],     "vary" : 1, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.2],   "use_limits": 1}, 
                {"name" : "param3", "value" : 0,        "limits" : [0, 1],          "vary" : 0, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.1],   "use_limits": 0}
            ]
        ]
    },
    "background" : {
        "type_B" : [
            [
                {"name" : "param1",         "value" : 0.0985,   "limits" : [0, 0.1],        "vary" : 0, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.1],   "use_limits": 0}, 
                {"name" : "param2",         "value" : 0.015,    "limits" : [0, 1],          "vary" : 0, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.2],   "use_limits": 0}
            ],
            [
                {"name" : "param1",         "value" : 0.0985,   "limits" : [0, 0.1],        "vary" : 0, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.1],   "use_limits": 0}, 
                {"name" : "param2",         "value" : 0.015,    "limits" : [0, 1],          "vary" : 0, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.2],   "use_limits": 0}
            ]
        ]
    },
    "others" : {
        "type_C" :[
            [
                {   "name" : "0",   "value": 0, "limits" : [-1e20, 1e20],   "vary" : 1, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.1],   "use_limits" : 0    },
                {   "name" : "1",   "value": 0, "limits" : [-1e20, 1e20],   "vary" : 1, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.1],   "use_limits" : 0    },
                {   "name" : "2",   "value": 0, "limits" : [-1e20, 1e20],   "vary" : 1, "deviation" : [0.1, 0.1],   "use_limits" : 0    }
            ]
        ]
    }
}

After loading in the data in Python, I can access it over data["params"], which returns the above data as a dictionary with the 3 keys main, background and others.

I need to loop over this data regularly. These loops can look as straightforward as

for kind in data["params"]:
    for type_ in data["params"][kind]:
        for idx, line in enumerate(data["params"][kind][type_]):
            for parameter in line:
                f(line[parameter], idx)

but they can sometimes also be a bit more involved, e.g.

for kind in data["params"]:
    if kind != "others":
    for type_ in data["params"][kind]:
        some_variable[kind] = {type_: []}
        for k, line in enumerate(data["params"][kind][type_]):
            for parameter in line:
                some_variable[kind][type_][k][parameter] = f(line[parameters])

These loops can get pretty messy and hard to read (i.e. understand the logic...), which obviously makes them also hard to maintain. Is there a way to clean this up? Maybe with itertools or trying a more modular approach using iterators directly?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 11 '22 at 12:11

for k, v in d.items():
    if isinstance(v, dict):
        myprint(v)
    else:
        print(f'{k} {v})

You can try something like this, this will keep on iterating it until it sees a nested dict, you might also have to use json.loads() maybe not sure

check this thread for more info here

How to iterate over dictionary while keeping the code clean and easy to read?

1 Answers1