Json throwing dict throws TypeError: keys must be a string

Question

I am trying to convert the following dict to JSON using json.dumps :

  { 'post_engaged': 36, 'post_impressions': 491, 'post_story': 23, 'comment_count': 6, 'created_time': '03:02 AM, Sep 30, 2012', 'message': 'Specialities of Shaktis and Pandavas. \n While having power, why there isn\\u2019t', < built - in function id > : '471662059541196', 'status_type': 'status', 'likes_count': 22 } { 'post_engaged': 24, 'text': '30 Sept 2012 Avyakt Murlli ( Dual Voice )', 'post_story': 8, 'comment_count': 3, 'link': 'http:\\/\\/www.youtube.com\\/watch?v=VGmFj8g7JFA&feature=youtube_gdata_player', 'post_impressions': 307, 'created_time': '03:04 AM, Sep 30, 2012', 'message': 'Not available', < built - in function id > : '529439300404155', 'status_type': 'video', 'likes_count': 7 } { 'post_engaged': 37, 'post_impressions': 447, 'post_story': 22, 'comment_count': 4, 'created_time': '03:11 AM, Sep 30, 2012', 'message': '30-09-12 \\u092a\\u094d\\u0930\\u093e\\u0924:\\u092e\\u0941\\u0930\\u0932\\u0940 \\u0913\\u0', < built - in function id > : '471643246209744', 'status_type': 'status', 'likes_count': 20 } { 'post_engaged': 36, 'post_impressions': 423, 'post_story': 22, 'comment_count': 0, 'created_time': '03:04 AM, Sep 29, 2012', 'message': 'Essence: Sweet children, whenever you have time, earn the true income. Staying i', < built - in function id > : '471274672913268', 'status_type': 'status', 'likes_count': 20 } { 'post_engaged': 16, 'text': 'Essence Of Murli 29-09-2012', 'post_story': 5, 'comment_count': 2, 'link': 'http:\\/\\/www.youtube.com\\/watch?v=i6OgmbRsJpg&feature=youtube_gdata_player', 'post_impressions': 291, 'created_time': '03:04 AM, Sep 29, 2012', 'message': 'Not available', < built - in function id > : '213046588825668', 'status_type': 'video', 'likes_count': 5 } 

But that leads me to

 TypeError : keys must be a string 

The error is most likely due to the fact that it contains keys , for example:

  <built-in function id>: '213046588825668' 

Can someone help me with how I should remove these elements from dictatorship?

Answer 1

You can try to clean it like this:

 for key in mydict.keys(): if type(key) is not str: try: mydict[str(key)] = mydict[key] except: try: mydict[repr(key)] = mydict[key] except: pass del mydict[key] 

This will try to convert any key that is not a string to a string. Any key that cannot be converted to a string or represented as a string will be deleted.

Answer 2

By changing the accepted answer above, I wrote a function for processing dictionaries of arbitrary depth:

 def stringify_keys(d): """Convert a dict keys to strings if they are not.""" for key in d.keys(): # check inner dict if isinstance(d[key], dict): value = stringify_keys(d[key]) else: value = d[key] # convert nonstring to string if needed if not isinstance(key, str): try: d[str(key)] = value except Exception: try: d[repr(key)] = value except Exception: raise # delete old key del d[key] return d 

Answer 3

I know that this is an old question, and there is already an accepted answer to it, but, alas, the accepted answer is simply incorrect.

The real problem here is that the code that the dict generates uses the built-in id function as the key instead of the literal string "id" . Thus, the simple, obvious and only correct solution is to fix this error in the source: check the code that the dict generates and replace id with "id" .

Answer 4

Ideally, you would like to clear your data to match the data types supported by JSON.

If you just want to exclude / or remove these elements from the dict during serialization, you can use the skipkeys argument , a description can be found in the json.dump section

 json.dumps(obj, skipkeys=True) 

This solution is much cleaner and allows the standard library to handle erroneous keys for you.

ATTENTION: You must fully understand the consequences of using such a radical method, as this will lead to data loss for incompatible data types, such as JSON keys.

Answer 5

Maybe this will help:

 your_dict = {("a", "b"):[1,2,3,4]} # save with open("file.json","w") as f: f.write(json.dumps(list(your_dict.items()))) # load with open("file.json","r") as f: your_dict = dict([tuple((tuple(x[0]), x[1])) for x in json.loads(f.read())]) 

Answer 6

Nolan Conway answer gives this result for example

{"b'opening_hours '": {"b'1_from_hour'": 720, "b'1_to_hour '": 1440, "b'1_break_from_hour'": 1440, "b'1_break_to_hour '": 1440, "b'2_from_hour' ": 720," b'2_to_hour '": 1440," b'2_break_from_hour' ": 1440," b'2_break_to_hour '": 1440," b'3_from_hour': 720, "b'3_to_hour": 1440, " b'3_break_from_hour '": 1440," b'3_break_to_hour' ": 1440," b'4_from_hour '": 720," b'4_to_hour' ": 1440," b'4_break_from_hour '": 1440," b'4_break_to_hour' " : 1440, "b'5_from_hour '": 720, "b'5_to_hour'": 1440, "b'5_break_from_hour '": 1440, "b'5_break_to_hour': 1440," b'6_from_hour ": 720," b '6_to_hour' ": 1440," b'6_break_from_hour '": 1440," b'6_break_to_hour' ": 1440," b'7_from_hour '": 720," b'7_to_hour' ": 1440," b'7_break_from_hour '": 1440, "b'7_break_to_hour '": 1440}}

so far this fixed version

 import time import re import json from phpserialize import * class Helpers: def stringify_keys(self,d): """Convert a dict keys to strings if they are not.""" for key in d.keys(): # check inner dict if isinstance(d[key], dict): value = Helpers().stringify_keys(d[key]) else: value = d[key] # convert nonstring to string if needed if not isinstance(key, str): try: d[key.decode("utf-8")] = value except Exception: try: d[repr(key)] = value except Exception: raise # delete old key del d[key] return d 

will give this cleaner version ..

{"opening_hours": {"1_from_hour": 720, "1_to_hour": 1440, "1_break_from_hour": 1440, "1_break_to_hour": 1440, "2_from_hour": 720, "2_to_hour": 1440, "2_break_from_hour" ": 1440," 3_from_hour ": 720," 3_to_hour ": 1440," 3_break_from_hour ": 1440," 3_break_to_hour ": 1440," 4_from_hour ": 720," 4_to_hour ": 1440," 4_break_from_hour ": 1440, 1440, "5_from_hour": 720, "5_to_hour": 1440, "5_break_from_hour": 1440, "5_break_to_hour": 1440, "6_from_hour": 720, "6_to_hour": 1440, 6_break_from_hour ": 1440, 6" "7_from_hour": 720, "7_to_hour": 1440, "7_break_from_hour": 1440, "7_break_to_hour": 1440}}

Answer 7

Perhaps this will help the next guy:

 strjson = json.dumps(str(dic).replace("'",'"'))