Hello Python-ideas,
I am working with lots of JSON objects in my work and need to obtain JSON
pointers to particular components of a JSON object. These pointers are
defined as part of the JSON-LD specifications as relative IRIs and as part
of the JSON-Schema specifications. However, I am not aware of these
pointers being part of the JSON specification. The pointers are really
straightforward and follow the same syntax as other IRIs (URLs) or file
paths. For example, the following flatten function illustrates the mapping
of nested dictionaries and arrays to a single flat dictionary, where each
nested key is mapped to a unique path.
d = {"a": 1, "b": {"ba": 2, "bb": [{"bba": 3, "bbb": None}]}}
flatten(d)
>> {'a': 1, 'b/ba': 2, 'b/bb/0/bba': 3, 'b/bb/0/bbb': None}
Not only does this conversion help in generating JSON pointers, but it
helps with logic for nested data structures. Specifically, assume there is
a dictionary, which includes nested dictionaries, lists, and tuples, and
any of these elements are contained within another dictionary or that other
dictionaries elements. Then it is not sufficient to simply compare the
items of the two dictionaries to check whether the first is a subset of the
other. However, the flat structures can be compared directly.
1. A nested dictionary is a subset of another nested dictionary. The
flatten function ensures the nested dictionaries are not checked for
equivalence but subset of.
# Current
{"a": 1, "c": {"d": 4}}.items() <= {"a": 1, "b": 2, "c": {"d": 4, "e":
5}}.items()
>> False
# Proposed
flatten({"a": 1, "c": {"d": 4}}).items() <= flatten({"a": 1, "b": 2, "c":
{"d": 4, "e": 5}}).items()
>> True
2. A nested list or tuple is a subset of a dictionary.
# Current
{"a": 1, "c": [3]}.items() <= {"a": 1, "b": 2, "c": [3,3]}.items()
>> False
# Proposed
flatten({"a": 1, "c": [3]}).items() <= flatten({"a": 1, "b": 2, "c":
[3,3]}).items()
>> True
Note that these examples only have one level of nesting, but the flatten
function must handle any level of nesting. For the current version of the
flatten function, I essentially borrowed the JSON "dumps" source code.
However, the dumps code doesn't utilize any other functions and I believe
there may be a missing "nestedIter" function in python. This function could
be used for JSON dumps or flatten or anytime someone wants to visit all
nested elements of a dictionary and perform some operation. Therefore, I
think this function could be included in the JSON library if python-ideas
thinks that the pointers are very specific to JSON or the itertools
library, where the nested iteration function could be generally used for
all nested data types.
Let me know what you think of this proposal and I am looking forward to
your responses.
Best,
Sven
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