python: read json and loop dictionary

Question

I'm learning python and i loop like this the json converted to dictionary: it works but is this the correct method? Thank you :)

import json  output_file = open('output.json').read() output_json = json.loads(output_file)  for i in output_json:         print i         for k in output_json[i]:                 print k, output_json[i][k]  print output_json['webm']['audio'] print output_json['h264']['video'] print output_json['ogg'] 

here the JSON:

{     "webm":{     "video": "libvp8",     "audio": "libvorbis"     },      "h264":   {     "video": "libx264",     "audio": "libfaac"     },      "ogg":   {     "video": "libtheora",     "audio": "libvorbis"     } } 

here output:

> h264  audio libfaac video libx264  ogg > audio libvorbis video libtheora webm > audio libvorbis video libvp8 libvorbis > libx264 {u'audio': u'libvorbis', > u'video': u'libtheora'} 

Answer 1

That seems generally fine.

There's no need to first read the file, then use loads. You can just use load directly.

output_json = json.load(open('/tmp/output.json')) 

Using i and k isn't correct for this. They should generally be used only for an integer loop counter. In this case they're keys, so something more appropriate would be better. Perhaps rename i as container and k as stream? Something that communicate more information will be easier to read and maintain.

You can use output_json.iteritems() to iterate over both the key and the value at the same time.

for majorkey, subdict in output_json.iteritems():     print majorkey     for subkey, value in subdict.iteritems():             print subkey, value 

Note that, when using Python 3, you will need to use items() instead of iteritems(), as it has been renamed.