Parsing JSON with backslashes

[bazcurtis]

I have a script where the users will need to edit some variables. I don't want them to mess the script up so decided I would make a config json file where they could just edit the json rather than edit the script.

I don't want the users to have to understand \\, I want them to fill it in the way you would normally type a file path or domain user account. The problem is I get a json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Invalid \uXXXX escape: line 5 column 22 (char 243) error. I understand why this is, but is there a way I can make it easy for the user, and Python ignore the error. Once I have parsed the JSON I will sort out the paths so Python can understand them.

def read_json_config():
    with open('console_config.json') as json_data:
        json_config_file = json.load(json_data)

This is my JSON file.

{
"ClientID":"8477295f-405",
"ClientSecret":"10f35a425670847eb63d9b1954592d2b8305cd87e3",
"ReportName":"Unprotected_Machines_",
"ReportFilePath":"c:\users\accounts\desktop\reports\",
"ConsoleName":"UK PS",
"SearchDomain":"dc=domain,dc=co,dc=uk",
"SearchUser":"domain\dap.l",
"SearchUserPassword":"password",
"DomainController":"10.0.1.20"
}

[micseydel]

You might be able to achieve that with a custom parser but I really, really wouldn't recommend that. If a regular Python file doesn't work for you, I'd recommend you give this a look.

[snippsat]

Two errors in this path because of escape characters.

>>> s = "c:\users\accounts\desktop\reports" # Removed last \
  File "<interactive input>", line 1
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \uXXXX escape

>>> # Fix 
>>> s = "c:\\users\\accounts\\desktop\\reports\\"
>>> s
'c:\\users\\accounts\\desktop\\reports\\'
>>> 

Do no use single \ in file paths.

import json
from pprint import pprint

def read_json_config():
    with open('c.json') as json_data:
        json_config_file = json.load(json_data)
        pprint(json_config_file)

read_json_config()

Output:
{'ClientID': '8477295f-405',
 'ClientSecret': '10f35a425670847eb63d9b1954592d2b8305cd87e3',
 'ConsoleName': 'UK PS',
 'DomainController': '10.0.1.20',
 'ReportFilePath': 'c:\\users\\accounts\\desktop\\reports',
 'ReportName': 'Unprotected_Machines_',
 'SearchDomain': 'dc=domain,dc=co,dc=uk',
 'SearchUser': 'domain\\dap.l',
 'SearchUserPassword': 'password'}

[bazcurtis]

You might be able to achieve that with a custom parser but I really, really wouldn't recommend that. If a regular Python file doesn't work for you, I'd recommend you give this a look.

This worked a treat. I have converted all my scripts that needed this option. They work perfectly. Thank you very much.