Flatten nested dictionaries, compressing keys

Question

Suppose you have a dictionary like:

{\'a\': 1,
 \'c\': {\'a\': 2,
       \'b\': {\'x\': 5,
             \'y\' : 10}},
 \'d\': [1, 2, 3]}

Ho

Answer 1

Using dict.popitem() in straightforward nested-list-like recursion:

def flatten(d):
    if d == {}:
        return d
    else:
        k,v = d.popitem()
        if (dict != type(v)):
            return {k:v, **flatten(d)}
        else:
            flat_kv = flatten(v)
            for k1 in list(flat_kv.keys()):
                flat_kv[k + '_' + k1] = flat_kv[k1]
                del flat_kv[k1]
            return {**flat_kv, **flatten(d)}