Flatten nested dictionaries, compressing keys

Question

Suppose you have a dictionary like:

{\'a\': 1,
 \'c\': {\'a\': 2,
       \'b\': {\'x\': 5,
             \'y\' : 10}},
 \'d\': [1, 2, 3]}

Ho

Answer 1

def flatten_nested_dict(_dict, _str=''):
    '''
    recursive function to flatten a nested dictionary json
    '''
    ret_dict = {}
    for k, v in _dict.items():
        if isinstance(v, dict):
            ret_dict.update(flatten_nested_dict(v, _str = '_'.join([_str, k]).strip('_')))
        elif isinstance(v, list):
            for index, item in enumerate(v):
                if isinstance(item, dict):
                    ret_dict.update(flatten_nested_dict(item,  _str= '_'.join([_str, k, str(index)]).strip('_')))
                else:
                    ret_dict['_'.join([_str, k, str(index)]).strip('_')] = item
        else:
            ret_dict['_'.join([_str, k]).strip('_')] = v
    return ret_dict