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Handling Mismatched Types in Python Dictionary Keys and Values During API Data Integration

šŸ‘€ Views: 0 šŸ’¬ Answers: 1 šŸ“… Created: 2025-06-13
python dictionaries api Python

I'm trying to debug I'm having trouble with I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm currently integrating data from an external API into my Python application, and I've run into a frustrating scenario with how I'm handling keys and values in dictionaries. The API returns data where the keys are sometimes strings and other times integers; for instance, the structure can look like this: ```python api_data = { 'user_id': 101, 102: {'name': 'Alice'}, '103': {'name': 'Bob'} } ``` I want to create a unified dictionary where all the keys are strings, but when I try to convert them, I get unexpected behavior. Here's my attempt: ```python final_data = {} for key, value in api_data.items(): string_key = str(key) final_data[string_key] = value ``` While this seems straightforward, I'm working with a situation where the following code snippet: ```python print(final_data) ``` Results in: ``` {'101': 101, '102': {'name': 'Alice'}, '103': {'name': 'Bob'}} ``` I expected `final_data` to have the integer `101` replaced with a string key, but it seems like it retains the original integer value unless it's an object. Am I missing something in my logic? Is there a more efficient way to ensure all keys are strings without losing the original values? I’m using Python 3.10. Any insights would be greatly appreciated! What am I doing wrong? Cheers for any assistance! I'm using Python stable in this project. What are your experiences with this?