Return keys from nested dictionary Python

Question

I have a nested dictionary as such:

{'needed1': {'notneeded': {'needed2': 'some_value'},
  'notneeded2': {'needed2': 'some_value'},
  'notneeded3': {'needed3: 'some_value', 'needed4': 'some_value'},
  'notneeded4': {'needed3': 'some_value', 'needed4': 'some_value'}}}

In which I wrote a function as such:

def get_field_names(category):
    field_names = []
    for info_cat, cat_type in category.items():
        # first key -> needed
        field_names.append(info_cat) 
        for category_type, conditions in cat_type.items():
            # second key -> not needed
            for field in conditions.keys():
                # third key -> needed
                if field not in field_names:
                    field_names.append(field)
                    
    return field_names

In which the key in the top of the dict and the key within the nest dict (3rd) level are needed. This returns a unique list (in order of nesting) the keys that I need from levels 1 and 3. This code works, but I don't know how or if there is a more elegant way to write this. I want to understand moreso of the approach to handle this kind of a case to explicitly handle the level of nesting within a to extract keys/values of my choosing

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Other than an odd reuse of the name `cat_type` (which you could avoid by making the middle loop `for conditions in cat_type.values()`), that code seems to do exactly what you want it to do, and I'm not sure how you'd generalize it without writing something more complicated (like a recursive function). — Blckknght, May 13 '22 at 02:11

Zero · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-13T03:15:20.677

1

This can help you get your desired output,

def get_all_keys(mydict):
  for key, value in mydict.items():
    yield key
    if type(value) == dict:
      yield from get_all_keys(mydict[key])

keys = set(map(lambda key:key if ("not" not in key) else None, get_all_keys(data))) - {None}

I took the help of @DmitryTorba's answer for this.

edited May 13 '22 at 03:15

answered May 13 '22 at 02:44

Zero

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I like this approach for the fact that it uses recursion, which is something I'm not familiar with too much. I think I can enhance this kind of logic to better fit my use case. Thank you! – user7298979 May 13 '22 at 02:51

Return keys from nested dictionary Python

1 Answers1