Extarct particulr part of json string using python regex

Question

I have below json string:

"{"sweep_enabled":true,"product":"XYZ","page":"XYZ Profile","list":" {\"id\":205782,\"name\":\"Robert Shriwas\",\"gender\":\"F\",\"practicing_since\":null,\"years\":21,\"specializations\":[\"Mentor\"]}","form":{"q":"","city":"Delhi","locality":null},"cerebro":true}"

I want to extract list part out of above string:

{\"id\":205782,\"name\":\"Robert Shriwas\",\"gender\":\"F\",\"practicing_since\":null,\"years\":21,\"specializations\":[\"Mentor\"]}

How can I do this using python regex?

Answer 1

There is a problem in your JSON, it encloses another json object in the double quotes and is causing json.loads to fail. Try doing some transformation on json string before passing to json.loads.

As following works perfectly.

>>> p = json.loads('''{"sweep_enabled":true,"product":"XYZ","page":"XYZ Profile","list":{\"id\":205782,\"name\":\"Robert Shriwas\",\"gender\":\"F\",\"practicing_since\":null,\"years\":21,\"specializations\":[\"Mentor\"]},"form":{"q":"","city":"Delhi","locality":null},"cerebro":true}''')

And you extract the requited part as

>>> p["list"]
{u'name': u'Robert Shriwas', u'gender': u'F', u'specializations': [u'Mentor'], u'id': 205782, u'years': 21, u'practicing_since': None}

Check this out I could manage to correct the json you provided.

>>> p = '''{"sweep_enabled":true,"product":"XYZ","page":"XYZ Profile","list":" {\"id\":205782,\"name\":\"Robert Shriwas\",\"gender\":\"F\",\"practicing_since\":null,\"years\":21,\"specializations\":[\"Mentor\"]}","form":{"q":"","city":"Delhi","locality":null},"cerebro":true}'''
>>> q = re.sub(r'(:)\s*"\s*(\{[^\}]+\})\s*"',r'\1\2', p[1:-1])
>>> q
'"sweep_enabled":true,"product":"XYZ","page":"XYZ Profile","list":{"id":205782,"name":"Robert Shriwas","gender":"F","practicing_since":null,"years":21,"specializations":["Mentor"]},"form":{"q":"","city":"Delhi","locality":null},"cerebro":true'
>>> r = p[0] + q + p[-1]
>>> r
'{"sweep_enabled":true,"product":"XYZ","page":"XYZ Profile","list":{"id":205782,"name":"Robert Shriwas","gender":"F","practicing_since":null,"years":21,"specializations":["Mentor"]},"form":{"q":"","city":"Delhi","locality":null},"cerebro":true}'
>>> json.loads(r)
{u'product': u'XYZ', u'form': {u'q': u'', u'city': u'Delhi', u'locality': None}, u'sweep_enabled': True, u'list': {u'name': u'Robert Shriwas', u'gender': u'F', u'specializations': [u'Mentor'], u'id': 205782, u'years': 21, u'practicing_since': None}, u'cerebro': True, u'page': u'XYZ Profile'}
>>> s = json.loads(r)
>>> s['list']
{u'name': u'Robert Shriwas', u'gender': u'F', u'specializations': [u'Mentor'], u'id': 205782, u'years': 21, u'practicing_since': None}
>>>