On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 02:15 am, Robin Koch wrote: > Am 28.08.2015 um 18:09 schrieb Sven R. Kunze: > > >> I'm reading JSON output from an input file, and extracting values. > > >> for proper parsing into native Python types, I would recommend YAML. > > "What's the best way to get from A to B?" > "I recommend starting at C." > > - Every other usenet-discussion.
"I have a pig's ear. What's the easiest way to turn it into a silk purse?" "I recommend starting with with something else." For the non-native English speakers here, we have a proverb "You cannot turn a pig's ear into a silk purse", a metaphor for the impossibility of making something (or someone) of good quality from a inferior stock. As programmers, we must recognise the importance of picking the right data structures. For instance, if we want fast key lookups, we would pick a dict, not a large string that needs to be slowly parsed each and every time we perform a lookup. So the question: "I have a large string of the form 'key:value', one key per line, how do I quickly look up a key and get the value?" would rightly get the answer "You don't. Use a dict." Possibly that means a once-off conversion from string to dict, or possibly it means convincing the source of the data to return a dict instead. In this case, I have no opinion on whether JSON or YAML (or indeed something else) is a better solution. But it is completely legitimate to suggest that the current solution is sub-optimal and another would be better. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
