python function return not working

Question

I have a recursive traversal function to go through a JSON object and return the information that I want. The problem is that it's not returning anything. I know that the recursion is working properly because I modified to function to print out the input at each step and it was printing out the expected results - including the final step.

def wikipedia_JSON_traversal(wiki):
    if type(wiki)==dict:
        if 'definitions' in wiki.keys():
             wikipedia_JSON_traversal(wiki['definitions'])
        elif 'text' in wiki.keys():                       
             wikipedia_JSON_traversal(wiki['text'])
        else:
             pass
     elif type(wiki)==list:
        wikipedia_JSON_traversal(wiki[0])
    else:
        return wiki

There's no return statement anywhere in the if block.

Adarsh Chavakula
– Adarsh Chavakula

2018-07-27 17:52:40 +00:00
Commented Jul 27, 2018 at 17:52 — Adarsh Chavakula
– Adarsh Chavakula, Commented Jul 27, 2018 at 17:52

Eric Yang · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-27 17:52:22Z

1

You need a return after each function call, the returns don't bubble up automatically.

def wikipedia_JSON_traversal(wiki):
    if type(wiki)==dict:
        if 'definitions' in wiki.keys():
             return wikipedia_JSON_traversal(wiki['definitions'])
        elif 'text' in wiki.keys():                       
             return wikipedia_JSON_traversal(wiki['text'])
        else:
             pass
    elif type(wiki)==list:
        return wikipedia_JSON_traversal(wiki[0])
    else:
        return wiki

answered Jul 27, 2018 at 17:52

Eric Yang

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1 Comment

aimf212 Over a year ago

Thanks! that did the trick! I spent several hours trying to debug this.

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