Python 3 - Extracting value from key in nested dictionary - json

Question

Hoping for some pointers here as I'm striking out with my attempts. Am working with python 3.8.5.
I'm querying a Car Park booking system that returns a json list of availability. The result has lots of nested dictionaries and I'm struggling to extract just the values i want.
This is what I've been doing:
import requests
import json
enquiry = requests.post(url.....) #queries api, this works fine
results = enquiry.text #extracts response data
dictionary = json.loads(results) #convert response to python dict
If there is one slot available, I get this output (apologies for length). If there are multiple slots available, i get the same output repeated:
{
"data": {
"services": [{
"id": null,
"name": null,
"services": [{
"id": null,
"name": "Car Park",
"met": true,
"filterCount": 1,
"primary": true,
"options": [{
"id": "9",
"images": [],
"available": true,
"calendarId": "AAAA",
"templateId": "BBBB",
"capacity": 0,
"name": "Car Park Slot 3",
"sessionId": "CCCC",
"functions": null,
"startDate": "2020-08-18T13:30:00Z", <--this is what I want to extract
"endDate": "2020-08-18T14:30:00Z",
"geo": {
"lat": 0.0,
"lng": 0.0
},
"selected": false,
"linkedServices": [],
"tiers": null
}]
}],
"currentBookingId": null,
"startDate": {
"ms": 1597757400000,
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"day": 18,
"dayOfWeek": 2,
"time": {
"seconds": 0,
"minutes": 30,
"hours": 14,
"days": 0
}
},
"endDate": {
"ms": 1597761000000,
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"day": 18,
"dayOfWeek": 2,
"time": {
"seconds": 0,
"minutes": 30,
"hours": 15,
"days": 0
}
},
"sessionId": "2222222",
"chargeType": 1,
"hasPrimaryBookable": false,
"hasBookable": false,
"hasDiscounts": false,
"hasMultipleTiers": false,
"isPreferred": false,
"primaryServiceAvailable": true,
"primaryServiceId": null,
"primaryServiceType": "undefined",
"unavailableAttendees": []
}],
"bookingLimit": null
},
"success": true,
"suppress": false,
"version": "2.3.293",
"message": null,
"result": null,
"errors": null,
"code": null,
"flags": 0,
"redirect": null
}
I want to extract:
"startDate": "2020-08-18T13:30:00Z"
from each key, value pair in any of the returned slots. However, I cant work it out.
Extracting the whole of this nested dictionary would also contain the same data, but would then involve more work to tidy it up after.
"startDate": {
"ms": 1597757400000,
"year": 2020,
"month": 8,
"day": 18,
"dayOfWeek": 2,
"time": {
"seconds": 0,
"minutes": 30,
"hours": 14,
"days": 0
}
I've tried loads of dictionary.get and dictionary.items variations, but cant seem to get anywhere.
I tried something like
key = ('startDate')
availability = dictionary.get(key)
print(availability)
this just returns 'none', so think im way off
Any pointers?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Thanks for the full data. It makes testing easier :)
I had to replace null -> None, true -> True, false -> False
slot = {
"data": {
"services": [{
"id": None,
"name": None,
"services": [{
"id": None,
"name": "Car Park",
"met": True,
"filterCount": 1,
"primary": True,
"options": [{
"id": "9",
"images": [],
"available": True,
"calendarId": "AAAA",
"templateId": "BBBB",
"capacity": 0,
"name": "Car Park Slot 3",
"sessionId": "CCCC",
"functions": None,
"startDate": "2020-08-18T13:30:00Z", # <--this is what I want to extract
................
print("Start Date:", slot['data']['services'][0]['services'][0]['options'][0]['startDate'])
Output
Start Date: 2020-08-18T13:30:00Z