Check if key exists and iterate the JSON array using Python

Question

I have a bunch of JSON data from Facebook posts like the one below:

{\"from\": {\"id\": \"8\", \"name\": \"Mary Pinter\"}, \"message\": \"How ARE you?\", \"c         


        

Answer 1

jsonData = """{"from": {"id": "8", "name": "Mary Pinter"}, "message": "How ARE you?", "comments": {"count": 0}, "updated_time": "2012-05-01", "created_time": "2012-05-01", "to": {"data": [{"id": "1543", "name": "Honey Pinter"}, {"name": "Joe Schmoe"}]}, "type": "status", "id": "id_7"}"""

def getTargetIds(jsonData):
    data = json.loads(jsonData)
    for dest in data['to']['data']:
        print("to_id:", dest.get('id', 'null'))

Try it:

>>> getTargetIds(jsonData)
to_id: 1543
to_id: null

Or, if you just want to skip over values missing ids instead of printing 'null':

def getTargetIds(jsonData):
    data = json.loads(jsonData)
    for dest in data['to']['data']:
        if 'id' in to_id:
            print("to_id:", dest['id'])

So:

>>> getTargetIds(jsonData)
to_id: 1543

Of course in real life, you probably don't want to print each id, but to store them and do something with them, but that's another issue.