How to make a python dictionary key error return false

Question

I am dealing with JSON data sets with dynamic response structures (keys) and need to execute code if certain keys exist. Right now if the key doesn't exist it throws a key error which I have attempted to pass through a bool operand but it appears the key error trumps bool operands in Python.

bool(dictionary['key'])

KeyError: 'key'

I feel like there is some way to do this that's easier than I'm attempting but just haven't been able to find anything through researching. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You want dictionary.get('key'). By default, this returns None, which will evaluate as False.

Answer 2

use dict.get and set a default value if the key was not found

dictionary.get('key', 'NotFound')