Question

I’m trying to create a generic function that replaces dots in keys of a nested dictionary. I have a non-generic function that goes 3 levels deep, but there must be a way to do this generic. Any help is appreciated! My code so far:

output = {'key1': {'key2': 'value2', 'key3': {'key4 with a .': 'value4', 'key5 with a .': 'value5'}}} 

def print_dict(d):
    new = {}
    for key,value in d.items():
        new[key.replace(".", "-")] = {}
        if isinstance(value, dict):
            for key2, value2 in value.items():
                new[key][key2] = {}
                if isinstance(value2, dict):
                    for key3, value3 in value2.items():
                        new[key][key2][key3.replace(".", "-")] = value3
                else:
                    new[key][key2.replace(".", "-")] = value2
        else:
            new[key] = value
    return new

print print_dict(output)

UPDATE: to answer my own question, I made a solution using json object_hooks:

import json

def remove_dots(obj):
    for key in obj.keys():
        new_key = key.replace(".","-")
        if new_key != key:
            obj[new_key] = obj[key]
            del obj[key]
    return obj

output = {'key1': {'key2': 'value2', 'key3': {'key4 with a .': 'value4', 'key5 with a .': 'value5'}}}
new_json = json.loads(json.dumps(output), object_hook=remove_dots) 

print new_json

Answer 1

Yes, there exists better way:

def print_dict(d):
    new = {}
    for k, v in d.iteritems():
        if isinstance(v, dict):
            v = print_dict(v)
        new[k.replace('.', '-')] = v
    return new

(Edit: It’s recursion, more on Wikipedia.)