Sorting JSON file in python by value in JSON

Question

I'm trying to sort JSON by high score, but this doesn't work. My JSON:

{"players": [{"test": [{"high_score": 1000}]}, {"test1": [{"high_score": 1200}]}, {"test2": [{"high_score": 3000}]}]}

My Python:

with open('score.json', "r") as json_file:
    data = json.load(json_file)
    json_file.close()
sorted_obj = data
    sorted_obj['players'] = sorted(data['players'], key=lambda x: x['high_score'], reverse=True)
    print(sorted_obj)

Output:

sorted_obj['players'] = sorted(data['players'], key=lambda x: x['high_score'], reverse=True)
KeyError: 'high_score''

I want output to be:

{"players": [{"test2": [{"high_score": 3000}]}, {"test1": [{"high_score": 1200}]}, {"test": [{"high_score": 1000}]}]}

Does anyone know how to solve this? Thanks

Your JSON structure makes no sense whatsoever. Please don't say that you must use this and cannot change it. — Tomalak
– Tomalak, Commented Dec 13, 2020 at 11:59

Tomalak · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-13 12:12:54Z

1

You don't need to call .close() when you're using a context manager (with ...). The context manager calls .close() for you, that's the whole point.

Your JSON structure is unhelpful in more ways than one. If you cannot change it, this works (I'm not going to explain why, if you have trouble figuring it out then take that as an indication that something is severely wrong with your data structure, because these things shouldn't be this hard.)

with open('score.json', "r") as json_file:
    data = json.load(json_file)

data['players'] = sorted(data['players'], key=lambda p: p[list(p.keys())[0]][0]['high_score'], reverse=True)
print(data)

With a more sensible input data structure, things suddenly become easy.

{"players": [
  {"name": "test", "high_score": 1000},
  {"name": "test1", "high_score": 1200},
  {"name"; "test2", "high_score": 3000}
]}

and

data['players'] = list(sorted(data['players'], key=lambda p: p['high_score'], reverse=True))

edited Dec 13, 2020 at 12:12

answered Dec 13, 2020 at 12:03

Tomalak

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3 Comments

krystof18 Over a year ago

Thanks, your data structure is much better

Tomalak Over a year ago

@krystof18 The main drawback it has is that you can't index a player by name, i.e. you can't do that_player = data['players']['test1']. But this drawback is super easy to overcome: that_player = next(p for p in data['players'] if p['name'] == 'test1').

Tomalak Over a year ago

@krystof18 Alternatively, building a temporary lookup dict is easy enough as well by_name = {p['name']: p for p in data['players']}

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