dumping list to JSON file creates list within a list [["x", "y","z"]], why? - json

Question

I want to append multiple list items to a JSON file, but it creates a list within a list, and therefore I cannot acces the list from python. Since the code is overwriting existing data in the JSON file, there should not be any list there. I also tried it by having just an text in the file without brackets. It just creates a list within a list so [["x", "y","z"]] instead of ["x", "y","z"]
import json
filename = 'vocabulary.json'
print("Reading %s" % filename)
try:
with open(filename, "rt") as fp:
data = json.load(fp)
print("Data: %s" % data)#check
except IOError:
print("Could not read file, starting from scratch")
data = []
# Add some data
TEMPORARY_LIST = []
new_word = input("give new word: ")
TEMPORARY_LIST.append(new_word.split())
print(TEMPORARY_LIST)#check
data = TEMPORARY_LIST
print("Overwriting %s" % filename)
with open(filename, "wt") as fp:
json.dump(data, fp)
example and output with appending list with split words:
Reading vocabulary.json
Data: [['my', 'dads', 'house', 'is', 'nice']]
give new word: but my house is nicer
[['but', 'my', 'house', 'is', 'nicer']]
Overwriting vocabulary.json

Answer 1

So, if I understand what you are trying to accomplish correctly, it looks like you are trying to overwrite a list in a JSON file with a new list created from user input. For easiest data manipulation, set up your JSON file in dictionary form:
{
"words": [
"my",
"dad's",
"house",
"is",
"nice"
]
}
You should then set up functions to separate your functionality to make it more manageable:
def load_json(filename):
with open(filename, "r") as f:
return json.load(f)
Now, we can use those functions to load the JSON, access the words list, and overwrite it with the new word.
data = load_json("vocabulary.json")
new_word = input("Give new word: ").split()
data["words"] = new_word
write_json("vocabulary.json", data)
If the user inputs "but my house is nicer", the JSON file will look like this:
{
"words": [
"but",
"my",
"house",
"is",
"nicer"
]
}
Edit
Okay, I have a few suggestions to make before I get into solving the issue. Firstly, it's great that you have delegated much of the functionality of the program over to respective functions. However, using global variables is generally discouraged because it makes things extremely difficult to debug as any of the functions that use that variable could have mutated it by accident. To fix this, use method parameters and pass around the data accordingly. With small programs like this, you can think of the main() method as the point in which all data comes to and from. This means that the main() function will pass data to other functions and receive new or edited data back. One final recommendation, you should only be using all capital letters for variable names if they are going to be constant. For example, PI = 3.14159 is a constant, so it is conventional to make "pi" all caps.
Without using global, main() will look much cleaner:
def main():
choice = input("Do you want to start or manage the list? (start/manage)")
if choice == "start":
data = load_json()
words = data["words"]
dictee(words)
elif choice == "manage":
manage_list()
You can use the load_json() function from earlier (notice that I deleted write_json(), more on that later) if the user chooses to start the game. If the user chooses to manage the file, we can write something like this:
def manage_list():
choice = input("Do you want to add or clear the list? (add/clear)")
if choice == "add":
words_to_add = get_new_words()
add_words("vocabulary.json", words_to_add)
elif choice == "clear":
clear_words("vocabulary.json")
We get the user input first and then we can call two other functions, add_words() and clear_words():
def add_words(filename, words):
with open(filename, "r+") as f:
data = json.load(f)
data["words"].extend(words)
f.seek(0)
json.dump(data, f, indent=4)
def clear_words(filename):
with open(filename, "w+") as f:
data = {"words":[]}
json.dump(data, f, indent=4)
I did not utilize the load_json() function in the two functions above. My reasoning for this is because it would call for opening the file more times than needed, which would hurt performance. Furthermore, in these two functions, we already need to open the file, so it is okayt to load the JSON data here because it can be done with only one line: data = json.load(f). You may also notice that in add_words(), the file mode is "r+". This is the basic mode for reading and writing. "w+" is used in clear_words(), because "w+" not only opens the file for reading and writing, it overwrites the file if the file exists (that is also why we don't need to load the JSON data in clear_words()). Because we have these two functions for writing and/or overwriting data, we don't need the write_json() function that I had initially suggested.
We can then add to the list like so:
>>> Do you want to start or manage the list? (start/manage)manage
>>> Do you want to add or clear the list? (add/clear)add
>>> Please enter the words you want to add, separated by spaces: these are new words
And the JSON file becomes:
{
"words": [
"but",
"my",
"house",
"is",
"nicer",
"these",
"are",
"new",
"words"
]
}
We can then clear the list like so:
>>> Do you want to start or manage the list? (start/manage)manage
>>> Do you want to add or clear the list? (add/clear)clear
And the JSON file becomes:
{
"words": []
}
Great! Now, we implemented the ability for the user to manage the list. Let's move on to creating the functionality for the game: dictee()
You mentioned that you want to randomly select an item from a list and remove it from that list so it doesn't get asked twice. There are a multitude of ways you can accomplish this. For example, you could use random.shuffle:
def dictee(words):
correct = 0
incorrect = 0
random.shuffle(words)
for word in words:
# ask word
# evaluate response
# increment correct/incorrect
# ask if you want to play again
pass
random.shuffle randomly shuffles the list around. Then, you can iterate throught the list using for word in words: and start the game. You don't necessarily need to use random.choice here because when using random.shuffle and iterating through it, you are essentially selecting random values.
I hope this helped illustrate how powerful functions and function parameters are. They not only help you separate your code, but also make it easier to manage, understand, and write cleaner code.