How to write to dictionary using user input and loop and parsing by space?

Question

I am trying to create a dictionary that I can serialize into a json file. This is my first time trying this so I am very confused.

I want user input for a patient’s first name, last name, age, and gender so the dictionary output would be as follows:

 "patients": [
    {
      "first_name": "Jane",
      "last_name": "Doe",
      "age": 33,
      "gender": f,
     }
  ]
}

I want each user input to be in one line until the loop is broken.
So far I only have:

patients = {}

info = input("Enter first name, last name, age, and gender separated by space. Enter stop to stop:")
 
for key, value in patients.items():
    print('first_name: {}, last_name: {}, age: {}, gender: {}'. format(key, value))

How can I set my code so that a user can continue inputting info until the loop is broken? How can I make the dictionary output as shown above so that each of the inputs is separated and appear as values to the dictionary keys accordingly? I honestly am not sure where to begin and any help is appreciated!

Asked By: prina sikowitz

||

Source

Answer 1

This program should do what you need. Have added comments for details of what each line is doing.

import json

# defines a dictionary with a list of patients as value
patients = {"patients": []}

# initializes the info variable
info = ""

# run a loop to capture comma separated values from user until they ask to stop
while (info != "stop"):
    info = input("Enter first name, last name, age, and gender separated by space. Enter stop to stop: ")
    if (info != "stop"):
        # splits the input by comma to form a data list
        data = info.split(",")
        # create a patient entry from the data list, using positions and trims any white spaces, converts age to number
        patient_entry = {"first_name": data[0].strip(" "), "last_name": data[1].strip(" "), "age": int(data[2]), "gender": data[3].strip(" ")}
        # adds the patient entry to the patient dictionary
        patients["patients"].append(patient_entry)


# opens a json file to write to and dumps the dictionary content into the file as json
json_file = open("patients.json", "w")
json.dump(patients, json_file)

This code expects that each input line is either the exact word stop or that it has four comma separated values in the exact format string, string, number, string. If you want to handle varied inputs, input validation such as below will need to be added to the code.

Check if the length of data is four
Check if the third entry is indeed a number

The content of patients.json will look like below

{
    "patients": [
        {
            "first_name": "John",
            "last_name": "Doe",
            "age": 45,
            "gender": "m"
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Jane",
            "last_name": "Doe",
            "age": 40,
            "gender": "f"
        }
    ]
}

Answered By: Bijo Thomas

Answer 2

"… How can I set my code so that a user can continue inputting info until the loop is broken? …"

Place the code within a loop, and utilize a boolean variable.

m = {'patients': []}
exit = False
while not exit:
    if (i := input()) == '': exit = True
    else:
        a, b, c, d = i.split()
        if '' in (a, b, c, d): exit = True
        else:
            m['patients'].append([
                {'first_name': a},
                {'last_name': b},
                {'age': int(c)},
                {'gender': d}
            ])

Here is the output, formatted.
Slightly different than JSON, I know.

abc xyz 123 m
xyz abc 321 f

{'patients': 
    [
        [
            {'first_name': 'abc'}, 
            {'last_name': 'xyz'}, 
            {'age': 123}, 
            {'gender': 'm'}
        ], 
        [
            {'first_name': 'xyz'}, 
            {'last_name': 'abc'}, 
            {'age': 321}, 
            {'gender': 'f'}
        ]
    ]
}

"… How can I make the dictionary output as shown above so that each of the inputs is separated and appear as values to the dictionary keys accordingly? …"

You would need to just format the output as JSON.

This could be as simple as a string-format, or using a JSON module.

Answered By: Reilas

Answer 3

First, it looks like you want a list with a set of dictionaries inside, so I have update the patients variable to a list.

Second, you can use a while loop to continue prompt for user input. For each entry, you can append the new dictionary to the list.

Last, to print each dictionary on one line, you can loop through the patients list and output each dictionary item.

patients = []


add_entry = True


def add_patient():
    patient_dict = {}
    patient_dict["first_name"] = input("Enter first name: ")
    patient_dict["last_name"] = input("Enter last name: ")
    patient_dict["age"] = input("Enter age: ")
    patient_dict["gender"] = input("Enter gender: ")
    patients.append(patient_dict)
    return 0


while add_entry:
    add_patient()
    add_new = input("Enter another patient (y/n): ")
    if add_new == "n":
        add_entry = False


for patient in patients:
    print(patient)

The output would look like this:

{'first_name': 'John', 'last_name': 'Doe', 'age': '33', 'gender': 'm'}
{'first_name': 'Jane', 'last_name': 'Smith', 'age': '21', 'gender': 'f'}

Answered By: Summer Zahara

How to write to dictionary using user input and loop and parsing by space?

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