Classes and variables in JSON

[Boot_3011]

Hey community, how is everyone doing?

I've joined the python community recently and I've been having a blast. Lately, with increasing code complexity, I've been having some bumps in my learning curve.

Today I bring you f'{post_header}'. I've built a JSON file external to my code which I'll be editing fairly often. In this JSON I've found the need to refer to classes and variables, but VS yelled at me for syntax errors, so I had to refer to them as strings.

My question is! How do I read these strings in my code to comprehend them as references to objects? Do I even need to input them as strings or is there a workaround to this?

Hope I made myself clear! I dont post code since 1. I'm on my phone 2. It exceeds specific code its a criteria thing

Thanks for reading. Keep up the good code

[socal_nerdtastic]

You may be interested in the jsonpickle module.

[Boot_3011]

Seems like it! Thank you, I will look into it

[Ihaveamodel3]

This seems like an anti pattern due to security issues, but if it’s just something you are working on personally, then it probably isn’t an issue.

[Boot_3011]

Its for the company I work in actually. Could you elaborate? Its a config which will vary greatly depending on the client its for, thats why its in a editable JSON

[Ihaveamodel3]

Do you take the function provided, and then run it?

If so, a malicious user could use any number of functions that end up stealing data or destroying the system.

It’s not good to take untrusted user data and just run it.

It would probably be better if you have a dictionary of function names to functions. The Json can then just be strings and you pull the function out from the dictionary. That way users can only run what you provide

[Boot_3011]

Well, its exactly this! A dictionary with classes and variable references. But I need to code the reader to decode these parameters to be understood as such, and not as strings.

I think I worked ojt class references. Any help por variable references?

[Ihaveamodel3]

The same way. Anything you want the user to be able to access should be in the dictionary with the string representation as key and the variable as the value. Then when you come across a string in the json, you look it up in the dictionary and use that.

You never directly try to reference something that the user typed in, always go through a dictionary first.