Convert a python dict to a string and back

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Music by Eric Matyas
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Track title: Puzzle Island

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Chapters
00:00 Question
00:34 Accepted answer (Score 436)
00:53 Answer 2 (Score 249)
01:16 Answer 3 (Score 202)
01:29 Answer 4 (Score 30)
02:24 Thank you

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Full question
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4547...

Accepted answer links:
[The json module]: https://docs.python.org/3/library/json.h...

Answer 2 links:
[ast.literal_eval]: http://docs.python.org/library/ast.html

Answer 3 links:
[json]: https://docs.python.org/2/library/json.h...

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Content licensed under CC BY-SA
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...

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Tags
#python #json #dictionary #serialization

#avk47

ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 460

The json module is a good solution here. It has the advantages over pickle that it only produces plain text output, and is cross-platform and cross-version.

import json
json.dumps(dict)

ANSWER 2

Score 266

If your dictionary isn't too big maybe str + eval can do the work:

dict1 = {'one':1, 'two':2, 'three': {'three.1': 3.1, 'three.2': 3.2 }}
str1 = str(dict1)

dict2 = eval(str1)

print(dict1 == dict2)

You can use ast.literal_eval instead of eval for additional security if the source is untrusted.

ANSWER 3

Score 214

I use json:

import json

# convert to string
input_ = json.dumps({'id': id_ })
    
# load to dict
my_dict = json.loads(input_)

ANSWER 4

Score 15

Use the pickle module to save it to disk and load later on.