python - How to select elements in a nested dictionary and delete them recursively

Question

I have generated a nested dictionary as a JSON which includes a concept, and then a reference to that concept in a sentence scraped from a website or a different JSON known as "ALTERNATIVE" with an associated superclass (please see hyperlink and below for actual minimum viable example):

"Glide": {"superclasses": {"Entity": [{"source": "ALTERNATIVE"}]}}, "Yacht": {"superclasses": {"Boat": [{"reference": "Originally, yachts were sailing-boats, but now there are also motor yachts.", "source": "https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacht"}, {"reference": "A yacht is a type of boat which is mainly used for recreation.", "source": "https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacht"}], "Vessel": [{"reference": "In sailboat racing, a yacht is any sailing vessel taking part in a race.", "source": "https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacht"}]}}, "Yam": {"superclasses": {"Vegetable": [{"reference": "A yam is a root vegetable.", "source": "https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam"}, {"reference": "Yam is a vegetable that can be cooked in many ways.", "source": "https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam"}], "Name": [{"reference": "Yam is the common name for some species in the genus Dioscorea.  ", "source": "https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam"}]}},

What I'd like to do for a key in my nested dictionary (e.g. "Yacht") is to look through its "superclasses" (e.g. in this case "Boat" and "Vessel") and see whether or not they are keys in my nested dictionary.

Currently I've converted my nested dictionary to a list of tuples of the form "(key, superclass)" that is ordered in terms of how many superclasses each key has (in descending order) to make things easier.

    import json
    from nltk.corpus import wordnet as wn
   
    
    ## importing the nested dictionary
    tax = json.load(open("data/nested_dict.json"))
    
    ## Converting our nested dictionary into a list of tuples
    tax_list = [(key, value) for key, value in tax.items()]
    
    ## Sorting out list with tuples in descending order of how many superclasses they have
    tax_list.sort(key=lambda x: len(x[1]["superclasses"].keys()), reverse = True)

Thanks,

Mark

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65891118/how-to-select-elements-in-a-nested-dictionary-and-delete-them-recursively

Answer 1

# Get all Keys in Master Dictionary and Convert to a LIST
allKeys = tax.keys()
allkeys = list(allkeys)  # Convert to a 'list' data structure so you can check it in one line of code (see below)

# I assume you want the user to specify the key in question
myKey = input("Please input key: ")

# Get the Superclass Dictionary Associated with that Specific Key
superClassDictionary = tax[myKey]

# Iterate through the Keys in the superClassDictionary
for superclass in superClassDictionary.keys():
  if superclass in allKeys:
     print("Superclass {} of key {} is also a key in the master dictionary".format(superclass, myKey))