Append dictionary in json using Python

Question

I am doing my first Python program and its Hangman game. I managed to make it work but as a part of the task I need to write "best results -hall of fame" table as json file. Each entry in the table should consist of name of the person and the result they achieved (number of tries before guessing a word). My idea is to use dictionary for that purpose and to append the result of each game to that same dictionary.

My code goes like this:

with open("hall.json","a") as django:
    json.dump(hall_of_fame, django)

hall_of_fame is a dictionary where after playing a game the result is saved in the form of {john:5}

The problem I have is that after playing several games my .json file looks like this:

{john:5}{ana:7}{mary:3}{jim:1}{willie:6}

instead I want to get .json file to look like this:

{john:5,ana:7,mary:3,jim:1,willie:6}

What am I doing wrong? Can someone please take a look?

It's difficult to imagine how you could end up with either of those json files since they are not valid json. I will also be difficult to help with the problem if you don't show any code other than the code you are using to save the data. — Mark
– Mark, Commented Dec 3, 2022 at 4:36
@Mark is it because the file is being opened in "a" mode (append) which would generate a file like that. which appends the item not changing the total structure of the previous item — Andrew Ryan
– Andrew Ryan, Commented Dec 3, 2022 at 4:38
Generally, load the whole JSON file (if present), modify data and write (not append) it to the file as a whole. — Michael Butscher
– Michael Butscher, Commented Dec 3, 2022 at 4:41
Thank you guys. Will try out everything said. Mark, I didn˛t post the whole code because I think it would be confusing since input menus are in different language. If I don`t figure this out, I will translate all and post it here. — Rosohatica
– Rosohatica, Commented Dec 3, 2022 at 7:53

nariman zaeim · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-03 05:20:21Z

1

you should read your old json content. then append new item to it. an finally write it to your json file again. use code below:

with open ("hall.json") as f:
    dct=json.load(f)

#add new item to dct
dct.update(hall_of_fame)

#write new dct to json file
with open("hall.json","w") as f:
    json.dump(dct,f)

have fun :)

edited Dec 3, 2022 at 5:20

answered Dec 3, 2022 at 4:49

nariman zaeim

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10 Comments

Rosohatica Over a year ago

Thanks nariman. I tried what you suggested but it looks like ".update" is not recognized as a function. Do I need to load some library?

nariman zaeim Over a year ago

hi there. you should put a dictionary in your json file first. even an empty one. stackoverflow.com/questions/8930915/…

Rosohatica Over a year ago

Still doesnt work. .update has white letters in Visual studio. When I hoover mouse over the .update it says "update : Any" and when running the code it says:

Rosohatica Over a year ago

This is what it gives when running the code Traceback (most recent call last): File "c:\Users\roso\Desktop\Python\hangman.py", line 82, in <module> f.dump(dct,f) ^^^^^^ AttributeError: '_io.TextIOWrapper' object has no attribute 'dump'

nariman zaeim Over a year ago

turn it to json.dump(dct,f) like my code above

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