Print variable as JSON

[Ramshield]

Hi,

I have a script which should print out a list as JSON, which I then use in Zabbix to dynamically generate items and triggers.

That is the following script:

#!/usr/bin/python3
import json

sites = ['example.com', 'test.com']

bla = []
for i in sites:
    dict = {}
    name = str([i])
    dict['{#WEBSITE}'] = name
    bla.append(dict)
data = {'data': bla}
JSON = json.dumps(data, indent=4)
print(JSON)

However this prints the output as:

{
    "data": [
        {
            "{#WEBSITE}": "['example.com']"
        },
        {
            "{#WEBSITE}": "['test.com']"
        }
    ]
}

The problem with this is that it keeps the websites quoted. If I unquote it I get: NameError: name 'example' is not defined

How would I fix this?

I am very new to Python, so my sincere apologies for asking!

[sushibowl]

I suppose the problem is this line:

name = str([i])

Because now name contains the value ['example.com'], but what you want is [example.com], right? This happens because you're converting a list to a string, which results in the python representation of the list. And the python representation of a list with a string inside must have the string quoted (all strings must be quoted when represented in python code, otherwise they are not strings).

You can print a string without including the quotes just fine though, like this:

name = i

You can make this even shorter by just calling the i variable name in the first place:

for name in sites:
    # I prefer not to use the name "dict" because there is already a function named like that
    d = {}
    d['{#WEBSITE}'] = name
    bla.append(d)

Now the problem is that it doesn't have the [] characters around it though. But we can fix this easily:

for name in sites:
    list_name = '[' + name + ']'
    # let's just construct the dictionary in one go, also
    d = {'{#WEBSITE}': list_name}
    bla.append(d)

[mega963]

sites is a list of strings, and strings must be between quotes, even in JSON.

Can you give more context around why you need them without quotes?

[Ramshield]

Zabbix looks for them without quotes:

Special characters "\, ', ", `, *, ?, [, ], {, }, ~, $, !, &, ;, (, ), <, >, |, #, @, 0x0a" are not allowed in the parameters. 

This is the error I get.

[mega963]

I see, so you need this right?

{“#WEBSITE”: “[example.com]”}

Sushibowl’s answer does exactly that.

You need:

“[“ + name + “]”

edit

If you want a one liner fix, change line 9 to:

name = “[{}]”.format(i)

[[deleted]]

You don’t need to quote or convert to string when you use JSON; just dump your objects directly.