How to read dictionary data from a file in python?

Question

I have the following file dic.txt:

{'a':0, 'b':0, 'c':0, 'd':0}

I want to read its contents and use as a dictionary. After entering new data values I need to write them into that file. Basically I need a script to work with the dictionary, update its values and save them for later use.

I have a working script, but can't figure out how to actually read the contents of the dic.txt into a variable in the script. Cause when I try this:

file = '/home/me/dic.txt'
dic_list = open(file, 'r')
mydic = dic_list
dic_list.close()

What I get as mydic is a str. And I can't manipulate its values. So here is the question. How do I create a dictionary from a dic.txt?

Answer 1

You need to parse the data to get a data structure from a string, fortunately, Python provides a function for safely parsing Python data structures: ast.literal_eval(). E.g:

import ast

...

with open("/path/to/file", "r") as data:
    dictionary = ast.literal_eval(data.read())

Answer 2

You can use the python built-in function eval():

   >>> mydic= "{'a':0, 'b':0, 'c':0, 'd':0}"
    >>> eval(mydic)
    {'a': 0, 'c': 0, 'b': 0, 'd': 0}
    >>>