Manipulating a json file in python: change the order of key:value pairs

Question

I have the follwoing json structure (see here: https://github.com/sebischair/NLU-Evaluation-Corpora/blob/master/AskUbuntuCorpus.json):

{
        "author": "Kristofer",
        "url": "http://askubuntu.com/questions/226332/how-to-install-a-canon-mf8040cn-printer-on-ubuntu-12-04",
        "text": "How to Install a Canon MF8040Cn Printer on Ubuntu 12.04",
        "entities": [
            {
                "text": "Canon MF8040Cn",
                "entity": "Printer",
                "stop": 5,
                "start": 4
            },
            {
                "text": "12.04",
                "entity": "UbuntuVersion",
                "stop": 11,
                "start": 9
            }
        ],
        "intent": "Setup Printer",
        "answer": {
            "text": "<p>For 14.04 through 16.04 do the following:</p>\n\n<p>Download the drivers from:\n<a href=\"https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/printers/black-and-white-laser/mf4770n?tab=drivers#Z7_MQH8HIC0L88RB0AMD0F1Q42K25\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/printers/black-and-white-laser/mf4770n?tab=drivers#Z7_MQH8HIC0L88RB0AMD0F1Q42K25</a></p>\n\n<p>untar it to a directory.\nfrom that directory (assuming 64-bit, adjust as you need to)</p>\n\n<pre><code>cd ~/Downloads\ngunzip -c Linux_UFRII_PrinterDriver_V320_us_EN.tar.gz | tar xvf -\ncd Linux_UFRII_PrinterDriver_V320_us_EN/64-bit_Driver/Debian/\nsudo apt-get -y install libglade2-0 libc6:i386 lib32z1 libxml2:i386 libjpeg62:i386 libstdc++6:i386\ncd 64-bit_Driver/Debian\nsudo dpkg -i *.deb\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>reboot</p>\n\n<p>run add printer .. should just show up automatically when you click the 'Add' button .. give it a few seconds and the printer chirps then just magically shows up.</p>\n\n<p>EDIT 3/2/15 for Vivid (15.04) (I suspect may need for 14.10 as well on brand new installation):</p>\n\n<p>Added extra software dependencies to the above</p>\n\n<p>EDIT 12/18/15 for 15.10 everything worked using above steps. Also, I didn't have to reboot .. it just worked.</p>\n\n<p>EDIT 2/27/16 (16.04beta) Updated the link to the 3.10 driver (they updated their website). Everything just worked using above, didn't need to reboot.</p>\n",
            "author": "JimB"
        },
        "training": false
    }

So you can load this as a dictionary with json.load.

I need to change the order of the key vlaue pairs in the entities-dictionary. Now it is text, entity, stop, start. I want to change the order of every pair. Likewise the "intent" after the entities dict I want to to change the position before this entities dict.

Python dicts have no direct interface for changing the order of key-value pairs. Maybe you'd have better luck with collections.OrderedDict? — Kevin
– Kevin, Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 13:37
But I have this json file. Then working with json instead with dicts? — ctiid
– ctiid, Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 13:38
If you're saying "but the thing returned by json.load is a json object, not a dictionary", that's a common misconception. There is no independent "json" type; json.load returns a perfectly ordinary dictionary. (or list or string or int, depending on the structure of the data you're loading) — Kevin
– Kevin, Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 13:40

Kevin · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-06 13:48:57Z

You can use OrderedDict to control the order of key-value pairs in a dictionary.

from collections import OrderedDict
import json

def ordered(d, desired_key_order):
    return OrderedDict([(key, d[key]) for key in desired_key_order])

toplevel_desired_key_order = ("author", "url", "text", "intent", "entities", "answer", "training")
entity_desired_key_order = ("stop", "start", "entity", "text")

with open("data.json") as file:
    d = json.load(file)

result = ordered(d, toplevel_desired_key_order)
result["entities"] = [ordered(entity, entity_desired_key_order) for entity in result["entities"]]

with open("results.json", "w") as file:
    json.dump(result, file, indent=4)

Result:

{
    "author": "Kristofer",
    "url": "http://askubuntu.com/questions/226332/how-to-install-a-canon-mf8040cn-printer-on-ubuntu-12-04",
    "text": "How to Install a Canon MF8040Cn Printer on Ubuntu 12.04",
    "intent": "Setup Printer",
    "entities": [
        {
            "stop": 5,
            "start": 4,
            "entity": "Printer",
            "text": "Canon MF8040Cn"
        },
        {
            "stop": 11,
            "start": 9,
            "entity": "UbuntuVersion",
            "text": "12.04"
        }
    ],
    "answer": {
        "text": "<p>For 14.04 through 16.04 do the following:</p>\n\n<p>Download the drivers from:\n<a href=\"https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/printers/black-and-white-laser/mf4770n?tab=drivers#Z7_MQH8HIC0L88RB0AMD0F1Q42K25\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/printers/black-and-white-laser/mf4770n?tab=drivers#Z7_MQH8HIC0L88RB0AMD0F1Q42K25</a></p>\n\n<p>untar it to a directory.\nfrom that directory (assuming 64-bit, adjust as you need to)</p>\n\n<pre><code>cd ~/Downloads\ngunzip -c Linux_UFRII_PrinterDriver_V320_us_EN.tar.gz | tar xvf -\ncd Linux_UFRII_PrinterDriver_V320_us_EN/64-bit_Driver/Debian/\nsudo apt-get -y install libglade2-0 libc6:i386 lib32z1 libxml2:i386 libjpeg62:i386 libstdc++6:i386\ncd 64-bit_Driver/Debian\nsudo dpkg -i *.deb\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>reboot</p>\n\n<p>run add printer .. should just show up automatically when you click the 'Add' button .. give it a few seconds and the printer chirps then just magically shows up.</p>\n\n<p>EDIT 3/2/15 for Vivid (15.04) (I suspect may need for 14.10 as well on brand new installation):</p>\n\n<p>Added extra software dependencies to the above</p>\n\n<p>EDIT 12/18/15 for 15.10 everything worked using above steps. Also, I didn't have to reboot .. it just worked.</p>\n\n<p>EDIT 2/27/16 (16.04beta) Updated the link to the 3.10 driver (they updated their website). Everything just worked using above, didn't need to reboot.</p>\n",
        "author": "JimB"
    },
    "training": false
}

ctiid · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-07 12:44:22Z

0

@Kevin:

I get for the data example above this error:

raise JSONDecodeError("Expecting value", s, err.value) from None
json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

answered Mar 7, 2018 at 12:44

ctiid

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