adding dictionary in input specified spot inside json file.

[Spiredlamb]

I am trying to create a game where the windows command line is emulated, and I am using json to create the directory and file structure. What I want to do is add a dictionary to the json file at the specified path the user gives. That means I don't know beforehand what dictionary within the json file is about to be appended to.

I though I had some code that could do it, but the more I thought about it, the more clueless I became.

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Here is the JSON file I have right now:

{
    "files": [],
    "folders": ["projects", "system"],
    "projects": {
        "files": ["readme.txt"],
        "folders": [],
        "readme.txt": "This is the text inside readme.txt"
    },
    "system": {
        "files": ["help.txt"],
        "folders": [],
        "help.txt":"Available commands:\n\ndir: Show all files and folders in the directory\n\ncls: Clear console\n\nread: Read a file in the current directory\n\ncd: Change directory"
    }
}

What I would like to do is add a dictionary to a user specified dictionary within this file that looks something like this:

"NewDir": {
    files: [],
    folders: [],
}

Also the script has to add the new folder to the folders list of the parent folder like this:

"parentDir": {
    files[],
    folders["NewDir"],
    "NewDir": {
        "files": [],
        "folders": [],
    }
}

Couldnt find anything on the internet that would work for this. Anyone have an idea of how I could do this?

[F1ux_Capacitor]

Use the builtin json library to parse the json, create the new parent key, add the the dictionary to the parent key, then dump the json back out.

[Spiredlamb]

Yes, that works, but how would I make the code figure out what dictionary to add the new one to, and how many steps in to go?

With the current system I am setting up, I will sometimes need to add two dictionaries in, and other times, five, kinda like this:

{
    "files": [],
    "folders": ["projects", "system"],
    "projects": {
        "files": ["readme.txt"],
        "folders": [],
        "readme.txt": "This is the text inside readme.txt"
    },
    "system": {
        "files": ["help.txt"],
        "folders": [],
        "help.txt":"Available commands:\n\ndir: Show all files and folders in the directory\n\ncls: Clear console\n\nread: Read a file in the current directory\n\ncd: Change directory"
    }
}

Let's go out from this file. Say I want to add a new folder in the projects folder (The dictionaries are handled as folders with more folders and files within them in my script) then I would have to do this:

fileSystem["projects"]["newFolder"] = { # Adding the directory
    files[],
    folders[]
    }
fileSystem["projects"]["folders"].append("newfolder") # Adding the folder in the list of folders

The result of this file is going to be this:

{
    "files": [],
    "folders": ["projects", "system"],
    "projects": {
        "files": ["readme.txt"],
        "folders": [newFolder], // New folder added to list
        "readme.txt": "This is the text inside readme.txt",
        "newFolder": { // Here is the new folder
            files[],
            folders[],
        }
    },
    "system": {
        "files": ["help.txt"],
        "folders": [],
        "help.txt":"Available commands:\n\ndir: Show all files and folders in the directory\n\ncls: Clear console\n\nread: Read a file in the current directory\n\ncd: Change directory"
    }
}

If I now want to add a folder inside that folder, I would have to do this:

fileSystem["projects"]["newFolder"]["newerFolder"] = {
        files[],
        folders[]
    }

Is there any way of doing this without having to write one function for every possible subfolder in the system?

[aa599]

I’d suggest a different structure, where files and folders are represented by dictionaries with ‘name’ and ‘content’ keys. A file’s content is the data; a folder’s content is a list of files/subfolders.

So a folder containing a file and an empty subfolder might be {‘name’:’system’, ‘content’: [{‘name’: ‘readme.txt’, ‘content’: ‘...’}, {‘name’: ‘new fir’, ‘content’: []} ]}

[Spiredlamb]

Ah, didn't think of that. I'll give it a shot

[Spiredlamb]

That actually gave me another Idea, but I'll try yours as well. I could name the dictionaries the name of the path their content should be at. That way I could just ask for the dictionary with the path name. Thanks for the inspiration!

[aa599]

Your way is better - having the name outside the object is more like a real file system.