[FIXED] How to extract only wanted property from JSON object

Issue

When I run the code:

import requests
import json
def get_fact():
  catFact = requests.get("https://catfact.ninja/fact?max_length=140")
  json_data = json.loads(catFact.text)
  return json_data
print(get_fact()) 

The output is like

{'fact': "Cats are the world's most popular pets, outnumbering dogs by as many as three to one", 'length': 84}

However I just want the fact.

How do I get rid of the 'fact:' at the front and 'length:' at the back?

Solution

What you want is to access the key in the python dict you made with the json.loads call. We actually don't need the json library as requests can read and deserialize JSON itself.

This code also checks if the response was OK and fails with informative error message. It follows PEP 20 – The Zen of Python.

import requests

def get_fact():
    # Get the facts dictionary in a JSON serialized form.
    cat_fact_response = requests.get("https://catfact.ninja/fact?max_length=140")
    
    # Let the response raise the exception if something bad happened to the cat facts server connection.
    cat_fact_response.raise_for_status()
    
    # Deserialize the json (make a Python dict from the text we got). requests can do that on it's own:
    cat_fact_dict = cat_fact_response.json()
    
    # Access the fact from the json from the dictionary
    return cat_fact_dict['fact']

    print(get_fact())

When called you get following output as wanted:

# python3 script.py 
The cat's tail is used to maintain balance.

Answered By - jary

Answer Checked By - Katrina (PHPFixing Volunteer)