Decoding nested JSON with multiple 'for' loops

Question

I\'m new to Python (last week), and have reached my limit. Spent three days on this, most of my time in stackoverflow, but I cannot work out how to go any further!

T

Answer 1

import os, json,requests
print 'Starting'
url = 'https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3758695/json.txt'

# download the json string
json_string = requests.get(url)
print 'Downloaded json'

# get the content
the_data = json_string.json()
print 'the_data has length ', len(the_data)
for index in range(len(the_data)):
    print 'Now working on index ', index
    for d in the_data[index]['innings']:
        print d['wickets']

Answer 2

First of all, don't use an index but loop directly over the lists; that way you can give them meaningful names. The top-level is a list of entries, each entry is a dictionary with a 'innings' key, and each innings is a list of dictionaries, with, among others, a wickets key:

for entry in data:
    for inning in entry['innings']:
        print inning['wickets']

This prints:

>>> for entry in data:
...     for inning in entry['innings']:
...         print inning['wickets']
... 
10
9
0
0

This makes it easier to add information at each level too:

>>> for entry in data:
...     print entry['description']
...     for i, inning in enumerate(entry['innings']):
...         print 'Innings {}: {} wickets'.format(i + 1, inning['wickets'])
... 
Rest of Sri Lanka v Sri Lanka A at Pallekele, May 14, 2013
Innings 1: 10 wickets
Innings 2: 9 wickets
63rd match: Royal Challengers Bangalore v Kings XI Punjab at Bangalore, May 14, 2013
Innings 1: 0 wickets
Innings 2: 0 wickets
64th match: Chennai Super Kings v Delhi Daredevils at Chennai, May 14, 2013

Answer 3

It looks ugly, but you can refine this, but here is listing at arbitrary depth of mix of Dict and List:

import os, json,requests
print 'Starting'
url = 'https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3758695/json.txt'

# download the json string
json_string = requests.get(url)
print 'Downloaded json'

def dig_down(partial_json_list, depth):
    if type(partial_json_list) is list:
        for i in range(len(partial_json_list)):
            print 'index', i, ' at depth', depth,' has', len(partial_json_list[i]) , 'elements'
            if len(partial_json_list[i]) > 1:
                dig_down(partial_json_list[i],depth+1)
    else:
        for k in partial_json_list:
            print 'item at depth', depth, 'equals', k#, ' & has', len(partial_json_list[k]) , 'elements'
            if type(partial_json_list) is list or type(partial_json_list) is dict:
                try:
                    if len(partial_json_list[k]) > 1:
                        dig_down(partial_json_list[k],depth+1)
                except:
                    pass
            else:
                print partial_json_list[k]

# get the content
the_data = json_string.json()
print 'the_data has length ', len(the_data)
dig_down(the_data,0)