Transform a list of dictionaries, based on key list

September 11, 2024

In Python 3.9, I have a list of dictionaries:

variables = [
    {'id': ['alpha'], 'ip': '10.10.10.10', 'name': 'primary'},
    {'id': ['beta', 'gamma'], 'ip': '10.10.10.20', 'name': 'secondary'}
]

My goal is to transform it into this dictionary format:

result = {
    'alpha.ip': '10.10.10.10',
    'alpha.name': 'primary',
    'beta.ip': '10.10.10.20',
    'beta.name': 'secondary',
    'gamma.ip': '10.10.10.20',
    'gamma.name': 'secondary'
}

I have a difficult time drafting the id loop logic, which will produce the correct result. With my limited Python experience, using the name instead of id:

result = {}
variables = [
    {'id': ['alpha'], 'ip': '10.10.10.10', 'name': 'primary'},
    {'id': ['beta', 'gamma'], 'ip': '10.10.10.20', 'name': 'secondary'}
]
ips = {f"{x['name']}.ip": x['ip'] for x in variables}
result.update(ips)
names = {f"{x['name']}.name": x['name'] for x in variables}
result.update(names)

>Solution :

You need to iterate through the variables list and, for each entry, loop through its id list. For each id, you will then generate two key-value pairs: one for the IP and one for the name.

variables = [
    {'id': ['alpha'], 'ip': '10.10.10.10', 'name': 'primary'},
    {'id': ['beta', 'gamma'], 'ip': '10.10.10.20', 'name': 'secondary'}
]

result = {}

for var in variables:
    for id_value in var['id']:
        result[f"{id_value}.ip"] = var['ip']
        result[f"{id_value}.name"] = var['name']

print(result)

which derives:

{
    'alpha.ip': '10.10.10.10',
    'alpha.name': 'primary',
    'beta.ip': '10.10.10.20',
    'beta.name': 'secondary',
    'gamma.ip': '10.10.10.20',
    'gamma.name': 'secondary'
}