Constructing JSON data structures from non-string key python dictionaries

[MRAB]

On 2012-11-21 14:59, saikari78 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm using the json module to  create a JSON string, then inserting that string into a html template containing a javascript function (from the highcharts library: http://www.highcharts.com/)
> The json string I'm trying to create is to initialize a data variable in the javascript function, that has the following example format.
>
>
>
>              data = [{
>                      y: 55.11,
>                      color: colors[0],
>                      drilldown: {
>                          name: 'MSIE versions',
>                          categories: ['MSIE 6.0', 'MSIE 7.0', 'MSIE 8.0', 'MSIE 9.0'],
>                          data: [10.85, 7.35, 33.06, 2.81],
>                          color: colors[0]
>                      }
>                  }]
>
> However, I don't know how to do that because dictionary keys in python need to be strings. If I try to do the following, Python,of course, complains that y,color,drilldown, etc are not defined.
>
>
> import json
>
> data = [ { y:55.11, color:colors[0], drilldown:{name: 'MSIE versions',categories: ['MSIE 6.0', 'MSIE 7.0', 'MSIE 8.0', 'MSIE 9.0'],data: [10.85, 7.35, 33.06, 2.81],color: colors[0] }} ]
>
> data_string = json.dumps(data)
>
>
> Many thanks for any suggestions on how to do this.
>
Just quote them:

data = [ { 'y':55.11, 'color':colors[0], 'drilldown':{'name': 'MSIE 
versions','categories': ['MSIE 6.0', 'MSIE 7.0', 'MSIE 8.0', 'MSIE 
9.0'],'data': [10.85, 7.35, 33.06, 2.81],'color': colors[0] }} ]

Incidentally, dictionary keys in Python don't have to be strings, but
merely 'hashable', which includes integers, floats and tuples amongst
others.