Searching a large dictionary

[Rhodri James]

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:52:56 +0100, mike171562  
<support.desk.ipg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry for the confusion, Simon, this is almost exactly what I need,
> but i need to be able to search for a string in a given value of an
> item
>
> Here is an example of the dict I am working with
>
> {'252': [{'code': '51679', 'date': '2009-08-01 11:35:38', 'userfield':
> '252', 'from': '9876662881', 'to': '19877760406', 'fpld': '"Foobar"
> <9855562881>', 'result': 'ANSW', 'sec': 131}, {'code': '51679',
> 'date': '2009-08-01 14:33:55', 'userfield': '252', 'from':
> '9876662881', 'to': '19877770391', 'fpld': '"Foobar" <9876555881>',
> 'result': 'ANSW', 'sec': 86}]}

Ugh.  This isn't, you'll notice, either of the versions of the structure
that you told us it was.  Let's prettyprint it for added clarity:


{ '252': [ { 'code': '51679',
              'date': '2009-08-01 11:35:38',
              'userfield': '252',
              'from': '9876662881',
              'to': '19877760406',
              'fpld': '"Foobar" <9855562881>',
              'result': 'ANSW',
              'sec': 131
            },
            { 'code': '51679',
              'date': '2009-08-01 14:33:55',
              'userfield': '252',
              'from': '9876662881',
              'to': '19877770391',
              'fpld': '"Foobar" <9876555881>',
              'result': 'ANSW',
              'sec': 86
            }
          ]
}

A dictionary containing a single entry, whose value is a list of
dictionaries.

>
> 252 being the key,

This vaguely implies that 252 (or rather '252') is the *only*
key.  I hope that's not true, for it would be a silly dictionary.

> I need to be able to search for a string in a given
> item , say 777 in the 'to' field so
>
> print wtf(dict,'to','777')
>
> would return
>
> {'252': [{'code': '51679', 'date': '2009-08-01 11:35:38', 'userfield':
> '252', 'from': '9876662881', 'to': '19877760406', 'fpld': '"Foobar"
> <9855562881>', 'result': 'ANSW', 'billsec': 131}, {'code': '51679',
> 'date': '2009-08-01 14:33:55', 'userfield': '252', 'from':
> '9876662881', 'to': '19877770391', 'fpld': '"Foobar" <9876555881>',
> 'result': 'ANSW', 'billsec': 86}]}

Which would be the entire original structure, except for some reason
relabelling 'sec' as 'billsec' telling us very little really.

>
> I hope this makes sense, sorry for not being clear

Not a lot, frankly.  There are still a lot of unanswered questions here.
Would I be right in thinking that you want to check all keys of the outer
dictionary, and you want the corresponding values in the returned
dictionary to be lists of all inner dictionaries that match?  And that
the business with sec/billsec is a typo?

Assuming that, try this:

# Untested, and it is midnight
def wtf(data_dict, key, value):
   # Don't call it 'dict', by the way, you'll mask the builtin object
   result = {}
   for outer_key, data_list in data_dict.items():
     new_list = []
     for inner_data in data_list:
       if value in inner_data[key]:
         new_list.append(inner_data)
     if new_list:
       result[outer_key] = new_list
   return result

Note that this won't work on the 'sec' field, since it's a number rather
than a string.

-- 
Rhodri James *-* Wildebeest Herder to the Masses