'Why won't this string convert to dict?

I have a small flask app that I'm using to import jobs from a database. The route I use for importing the jobs is as follows (job_details is a submit button in a form for each individual job that passes the job):

@app.route("/job-import", methods=["POST"])
def job_import():
    if "loggedin" in session:
        if request.method == 'POST':
            job = request.form['job_details']

            # Job comes in string format, therefore needs to be converted to DICT
                job = ast.literal_eval(job)
...

I want to convert the string I get from request.form['job_details'] to a dict so I can then parse it and access the values via job['description'], job['title'] etc. However, I keep getting a 'TypeError: string indices must be integers' error. I am sure it is being passed as a string, and as far as I can find ast.literal_eval() should convert the string to a dict, however this is clearly not the case. Why is this?

Some sample input for a job from my app:

"{'id': 3, 'date': datetime.date(2022, 2, 3), 'job_title': 'Cool title', 'contact_name': 'Mr Cool', 'contact_email': '[email protected]', 'location': 'Coolville', 'expiry_date': datetime.date(2022, 5, 1), 'salary': None, 'twitter': None, 'listing_type': None, 'description': 'a cool job for cool people to do cool things', 'url': 'cooljobs.cool', 'logo': None, 'status': None}"

Full traceback:

return self.wsgi_app(environ, start_response) File "", line 2450, in wsgi_app response = self.handle_exception(e) File "", line 1867, in handle_exception reraise(exc_type, exc_value, tb) File "", line 39, in reraise raise value File "", line 2447, in wsgi_app response = self.full_dispatch_request() File "", line 1952, in full_dispatch_request rv = self.handle_user_exception(e) File "", line 1821, in handle_user_exception reraise(exc_type, exc_value, tb) File "", line 39, in reraise raise value File "", line 1950, in full_dispatch_request rv = self.dispatch_request() File "", line 1936, in dispatch_request return self.view_functionsrule.endpoint File "", line 57, in app if job['listing_type'] == "Basic job listing (free)":

Solution 1:^[1]

I have since worked on this and solved the issue. In all honesty, I am not sure how. I ended up using ast.literal_eval and this has worked thus far and my program is working correctly as of now. I did not however change the datetime.date value in the database, although in future I think I will avoid this type as a rule of thumb.

Thank you to everyone who gave advice.

Solution 2:^[2]

If your application is sending back json then you should json.loads instead of ast.literal_eval.

Solution 3:^[3]

Why is this?

ast.literal_eval docs

Safely evaluate an expression node or a string containing a Python literal or container display. The string or node provided may only consist of the following Python literal structures: strings, bytes, numbers, tuples, lists, dicts, sets, booleans, None and Ellipsis.

Your string is holding datetime.date (datetime.date(2022, 2, 3)) which is not one of enumerated

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1	Sterling
Solution 2	Robert Hafner
Solution 3	Daweo

'Why won't this string convert to dict?

Solution 1:[1]

Solution 2:[2]

Solution 3:[3]

Sources

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Solution 1:^[1]

Solution 2:^[2]

Solution 3:^[3]