How can I show the structure of a python list with its datatypes and without showing the value of th-CodePudding

I have a python list which is coming from an API response where values are base64 encoded images, so the strings are super long. I want to show the structure and data types of the list without showing the values.

{
...
"api_response": [
  [
    [
      "super long string of base64 encoded image",
      "super long string of base64 encoded image",
      "super long string of base64 encoded image",
      "super long string of base64 encoded image",
    ]
  ]
]
}

When i try:

print(type(api_response))

The result is:

<class 'list'>

When I try:

print(api_response)

I get a giant blob of text which shows the base64 string. I want formatted and linted like:

[
  [
    [
      <string>,
      <string>,
      <string>,
      <string>,
    ]
  ]
]

CodePudding user response：

A list in python can hold data of multiple different datatypes.

You could use map and type on your list to get all datatypes like this:

l = ["a", 1, True]
list(map(type, l))
# [<class 'str'>, <class 'int'>, <class 'bool'>]

CodePudding user response：

If your data objects are at various depth within you list,

e.g.

l = [[["aa", "bb", 345], "cc"]]

I would do a recursive function like so:

def type_map(l):
    if not isinstance(l, list):
        return str(type(l))
    else:
        l = [type_map(x) for x in l]
    return l


print(type_map(l))

outputs:

[[["<class 'str'>", "<class 'str'>", "<class 'int'>"], "<class 'str'>"]]

Then for pretty printing, I would use json formatter of json module

import json
print (json.dumps(type_map(l), indent=2))

outputs:

[
  [
    [
      "<class 'str'>",
      "<class 'str'>",
      "<class 'int'>"
    ],
    "<class 'str'>"
  ]
]