Dictionaries, JSON, and Pip
Sarah Holderness
PLURALSIGHT AUTHOR
@dr_holderness
Maintaining Two Lists
acronyms = ['LOL', 'IDK', 'TBH']
translations = ['laugh out loud', "I don't know", 'to be honest']
del acronyms[0] If we add or delete from one list…
del translations[0] We have to do the same thing in the other list.
print(acronyms)
print(translations)
['IDK', 'TBH']
["I don't know", 'to be honest']
A Dictionary Maps Keys to Values
acronyms = {'LOL': 'laugh out loud',
'IDK': "I don't know",
'TBH': 'to be honest'}
key assign to value
Key Value These would be the keys and
values stored in the dictionary.
'LOL' 'laugh out loud'
Each item is known as a
'IDK' "I don’t know"
"key-value pair".
'TBH' 'to be honest'
A Dictionary Maps Keys to Values
acronyms = {'LOL': 'laugh out loud',
'IDK': "I don't know",
'TBH': 'to be honest'}
print(acronyms['LOL']) To look up a value in a dictionary,
we send in a key.
(Instead of an index in a list.)
laugh out loud
Dictionaries Can Hold Anything
Dictionaries, like lists, can hold anything you want: numbers, strings, a
mix of both, and other objects.
Dictionary of strings to strings
acronyms = {'LOL': 'laugh out loud', 'IDK': "I don't know"}
Dictionary of strings to numbers
A menu item’s name is the key,
menu = {'Soup': 5, 'Salad': 6}
and its price is the value.
Dictionary of anything
my_dict = {10: 'hello', 2: 6.5}
Creating a Dictionary and Adding Values
Create an empty dictionary:
acronyms = {}
Adding new dictionary items:
acronyms['LOL'] = 'laugh out loud'
acronyms['IDK'] = "I don't know" Notice our 3 key-value pairs
acronyms['TBH'] = 'to be honest' are there, but order is random
print(acronyms) in a dictionary.
{'IDK': "I don't know", 'LOL': 'laugh out loud',
'TBH': 'to be honest'}
Updating Values in Our Dictionary
Our current dictionary:
{'IDK': "I don't know",
print(acronyms)
'LOL': 'laugh out loud',
'TBH': 'to be honest'}
Let’s update the value for TBH:
A value is updated the same
acronyms['TBH'] = 'honestly'
way a value is added.
Looking up the same value:
print(acronyms['TBH']) honestly
Removing Dictionary Items
You can delete an item from a dictionary by looking up its key
acronyms = {'LOL': 'laugh out loud',
'IDK': "I don't know",
'TBH': 'to be honest'}
del acronyms['LOL'] To delete a value in a dictionary, we send
in a key just like when we look up a value.
print(acronyms)
{'IDK': "I don't know", 'TBH': 'to be honest'}
Get an Item that Might Not Be There
Trying to access a key that doesn’t exist will cause an error
definition = acronyms['BTW']
KeyError: 'BTW'
If you want to get a word in the dictionary, use get()
# Get a value that might not be there
Using get() won’t
definition = acronyms.get('BTW')
crash your program.
print(definition)
None is a type that represents
None
the absence of a value.
None Type
None means the absence of a value, and evaluates to False in a conditional.
acronyms = {'LOL': 'laugh out loud', 'IDK': "I don't know"}
definition = acronyms.get('BTW')
definition equals None
because the key doesn’t exist
if definition: False because definition is None
print(definition)
else:
print("Key doesn't exist") So this is run
Key doesn’t exist
Using a Dictionary to Translate a Sentence
acronyms = {'LOL': 'laugh out loud',
'IDK': "I don't know",
'TBH': 'to be honest'}
sentence = 'IDK' + ' what happened ' + 'TBH'
translation = acronyms.get('IDK') +' what happened '+ acronyms.get('TBH')
Look up the value of each acronym
in the acronyms dictionary
Using a Dictionary to Translate a Sentence
acronyms = {'LOL': 'laugh out loud',
'IDK': "I don't know",
'TBH': 'to be honest'}
sentence = 'IDK' + ' what happened ' + 'TBH'
translation = acronyms.get('IDK') +' what happened '+ acronyms.get('TBH')
print('sentence:', sentence)
print('translation:', translation)
IDK what happened TBH
I don't know what happened to be honest
Combining Lists and Dictionaries
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner Lists
Let’s say we have three separate menu lists: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner…
breakfast = ['Egg Sandwich','Bagel','Coffee']
lunch = ['BLT','PB&J','Turkey Sandwich']
dinner = ['Soup','Salad','Spaghetti','Taco']
How would we combine these
into one list?
A List of Lists
You can have a container of containers - menus is a list of lists.
menus = [ ['Egg Sandwich','Bagel','Coffee'],
['BLT','PB&J','Turkey Sandwich'],
['Soup','Salad','Spaghetti','Taco'] ]
print('Breakfast Menu:\t', menus[0]) 1st list
print('Lunch Menu:\t', menus[1]) 2nd list
print('Dinner Menu:\t', menus[2]) 3rd list
Breakfast Menu: ['Egg Sandwich', 'Bagel', 'Coffee']
Lunch Menu: ['BLT', 'PB&J', 'Turkey Sandwich']
Dinner Menu: ['Soup', 'Salad', 'Spaghetti', 'Taco']
Getting an Item from a Two-dimensional List
You can use get two indexes to get an individual item
How would you get this item?
menus = [ ['Egg Sandwich','Bagel','Coffee'],
['BLT','PB&J','Turkey Sandwich'],
['Soup','Salad','Spaghetti','Taco'] ]
print(menus[0]) 1st list
['Egg Sandwich', 'Bagel', 'Coffee']
A good start! Now we just need
to get the second item in this list.
Getting an Item from a Two-dimensional List
You can use get two indexes to get an individual item
How would you get this item?
menus = [ ['Egg Sandwich','Bagel','Coffee'],
['BLT','PB&J','Turkey Sandwich'],
['Soup','Salad','Spaghetti','Taco'] ]
print(menus[0][1]) The list at index 0 in the outer list,
the item at index 1 in the inner list
Bagel
A Dictionary of Lists
We could also use a dictionary for our menus with keys for Breakfast,
Lunch and Dinner
menus = { 'Breakfast': ['Egg Sandwich','Bagel','Coffee'],
'Lunch': ['BLT','PB&J','Turkey Sandwich'],
'Dinner': ['Soup','Salad','Spaghetti','Taco'] }
print('Breakfast Menu:\t', menus['Breakfast']) Using the keys to
print('Lunch Menu:\t', menus['Lunch']) access each list
print('Dinner Menu:\t', menus['Dinner'])
Breakfast Menu: ['Egg Sandwich', 'Bagel', 'Coffee']
Lunch Menu: ['BLT', 'PB&J', 'Turkey Sandwich']
Dinner Menu: ['Soup', 'Salad', 'Spaghetti', 'Taco']
A Dictionary of Lists
We could also use a dictionary for our menus with keys for Breakfast,
Lunch and Dinner
menus = { 'Breakfast': ['Egg Sandwich','Bagel','Coffee'],
'Lunch': ['BLT','PB&J','Turkey Sandwich'],
'Dinner': ['Soup','Salad','Spaghetti','Taco'] }
print('Breakfast Menu:\t', menus['Breakfast'])
What if we had a
lot more menus, is
print('Lunch Menu:\t', menus['Lunch']) there better way to
print('Dinner Menu:\t', menus['Dinner']) print each one?
Breakfast Menu: ['Egg Sandwich', 'Bagel', 'Coffee']
Lunch Menu: ['BLT', 'PB&J', 'Turkey Sandwich']
Dinner Menu: ['Soup', 'Salad', 'Spaghetti', 'Taco']
Printing the Dictionary Menu Items
menus = { 'Breakfast': ['Egg Sandwich','Bagel','Coffee'],
'Lunch': ['BLT','PB&J','Turkey Sandwich'],
'Dinner': ['Soup','Salad','Spaghetti','Taco'] }
for item in menus:
print(item) This defaults to just returning
the keys in a dictionary…
Which is not what we want.
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Using a Dictionary’s Key and Value in a for Loop
menus = { 'Breakfast': ['Egg Sandwich','Bagel','Coffee'],
'Lunch': ['BLT','PB&J','Turkey Sandwich'],
'Dinner': ['Soup','Salad','Spaghetti','Taco'] }
for name, menu in menus.items(): Now the loop has
print(name, ':', menu) access to both the key
and the value here.
Breakfast : ['Egg Sandwich', 'Bagel', 'Coffee']
Lunch : ['BLT', 'PB&J', 'Turkey Sandwich']
Dinner : ['Soup', 'Salad', 'Spaghetti', 'Taco']
Using Dictionaries to Represent Objects
Let’s say we have a person and we want to represent their
attributes, such as their name, age, and city they’re from.
We could use a dictionary where the
attributes are saved as key, value pairs.
person = {'name': 'Sarah Smith',
'city': "Orlando",
'age': '100'}
print(person.get(’name’), 'is', person.get('age'), 'years old.')
Sarah Smith is 100 years old.
Reading JSON and Installing Packages with Pip
We Want a Program that Lists the Current
People in Space
>>> python3 space_people.py HTTP Request
to api.open-notify.org/
The people currently astros.json
in space are:
Sergey Ryzhikov
Kate Rubins HTTP Response
Sergey Kud-Sverchkov
with the current people
Mike Hopkins
in space
Victor Glover Web Server
Shannon Walker
Soichi Noguchi
HTTP Request
HTTP Request
pluralsight.com
HTTP Response
HTML can be returned Web Server
Your Computer and displayed as a web
page in your browser
Some Websites Return Raw Data
Usually the raw data is returned under the API (Application
Programming Interface) for the website such as api.twitter.com
HTTP Request
HTTP Response
Your Computer JSON data is returned and Web Server
different applications can
do different things with it
JSON Data
A common use of JSON is to exchange data to/from a web server.
json = { JSON format can be a mix of lists and
"number":4, dictionaries like we’ve seen before
"students":
[
{"name":"Sarah Holderness", "email":"
[email protected]"},
{"name":"Harry Potter", "email":"
[email protected]"},
{"name":"Hermione Granger", "email":"
[email protected]"},
{"name":"Ron Weasley", "email":"
[email protected]"}
]
}
JSON - JavaScript Object Notation
JSON started in JavaScript but now can be used in any programming
language, including Python
json = {
"number":4,
"students":
[
{"name":"Sarah Holderness", "email":"[email protected]"},
{"name":"Harry Potter", "email":"[email protected]"},
{"name":"Hermione Granger", "email":"[email protected]"},
{"name":"Ron Weasley", "email":"[email protected]"}
]
}
How Do We Do an HTTP Request in Python?
If you do a web search for "Python http request" the first result should
be for the requests library.
The requests library allows us
to do an http request.
However, requests is not
installed with Python so we
need to install it ourselves.
Ensure PIP is Installed
pip is used to install any package from the Python Package Index
If Python 3 is installed the command pip3
should work on a Mac or pip on Windows.
(Otherwise add pip to the Path.)
<<< pip3 --version
pip 20.2.3 from /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/
Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pip (python 3.9)
Installing the Requests Package
<<< pip3 requests
You will need an internet connection since the
Collecting requests packages are downloaded from the internet.
...
Successfully installed requests-2.25.0
Now that the requests package is
installed, we can use it in a program!
Where Do We Want to Request Data From?
open-notify.org - This API returns the current number of people in space.
When known it also returns the names and spacecraft those people are on.
The api we want to send http the
request to:
api.open-notify.org/astros.json
How many humans are in space right now in JSON?
Making a request to http://api.open-notify.org/astros.json, will return the
following JSON format.
{
"message": "success",
"number": NUMBER_OF_PEOPLE_IN_SPACE,
"people": [
{"name": NAME, "craft": SPACECRAFT_NAME},
...
]
}
How Do We Do an HTTP Request in Python?
import requests First, we import the requests module
How Do We Do an HTTP Request in Python?
import requests
response = requests.get('http://api.open-notify.org/astros.json')
Then we call requests.get() and
pass in our http address:
api.open-notify.org/astros.json
How Do We Get JSON from the Response?
import requests
response = requests.get('http://api.open-notify.org/astros.json')
json = response.json()
Call response.json() to decode
the JSON from the response.
Now We Can Print the JSON Data
import requests
response = requests.get('http://api.open-notify.org/astros.json')
json = response.json()
print(json)
json stores the JSON as a dictionary
{
'message': 'success',
'number': 7,
'people': [
{'craft': 'ISS', 'name': 'Sergey Ryzhikov'},
{'craft': 'ISS', 'name': 'Kate Rubins'},
…
}
How Do We Print the Names of the
People in Space?
json =
{
'message': 'success',
How do we get this list of people?
'number': 7,
'people': [
{'craft': 'ISS', 'name': 'Sergey Ryzhikov'},
{'craft': 'ISS', 'name': 'Kate Rubins'},
…
}
json['people'] We can use the people key.
Now let’s print this list.
Printing the People in Space
import requests
response = requests.get('http://api.open-notify.org/astros.json')
json = response.json()
for person in json['people']: We can use a loop to print
print(person) each item in this list.
{'craft': 'ISS', 'name': 'Sergey Ryzhikov'}
{'craft': 'ISS', 'name': 'Kate Rubins'}
{'craft': 'ISS', 'name': 'Sergey Kud-Sverchkov'}
...
Each item is a dictionary, but
we just want the name part.
Printing the People in Space
import requests
response = requests.get('http://api.open-notify.org/astros.json')
json = response.json()
for person in json['people']: We can use the key 'name'
print(person['name']) key to get just the name.
Sergey Ryzhikov Great! We’re able to print the
Kate Rubins names of the people in space.
Sergey Kud-Sverchkov
...
Final Touch: Adding a Heading
import requests
response = requests.get('http://api.open-notify.org/astros.json')
json = response.json()
print('The people currently in space are:') Print a heading
for person in json['people']: for clarity.
print(person['name'])
The people currently in space are:
Sergey Ryzhikov
Kate Rubins
Sergey Kud-Sverchkov
...
