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Subject: Re: Help with parsing a dict from Vendor's API?
From: Nick Ellson <nickolas.ellson@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <m1lecj$rbt$1@ger.gmane.org>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 06:35:57 -0700
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To: Peter Otten <__peter__@web.de>
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Thank you Peter!=20

That makes sense, and I did find "pprint" that dumped it out aligned so I co=
uld actually see the nested layers you are referring to.=20

That got me my IP's. :-) I'll play with this now and see if I can harvest so=
mething targeted.. Like list all device host names running code 4.1.9, or di=
splay the serial number of the device with hostname 'foo'

That should get me on my way to productive fun :-)

Nick

Nick Ellson - from iPhone (forgive typos)
CCIE #20018
Network Hobbyist
"Educating Layer 8, one user at a time."

> On Oct 15, 2014, at 2:22 AM, Peter Otten <__peter__@web.de> wrote:
>=20
> Nick Ellson wrote:
>=20
>> Hello!
>>=20
>> I have a very specific question related to the output of a Vendors API
>> (Palo Alto Networks "pan.xapi" and how I might farm data from this output=
.
>> I am new to python, doing well in the tutorials, but this is an automatio=
n
>> task at work and I know the rest will be much easier once i get past the
>> ability to read this dict.
>>=20
>> The code reaches in to the central Palo Alto firewall manager (Panorama)
>> and executes a simple command to return all of the information for each o=
f
>> the managed firewalls in the field. It captured this output in XML I
>> believe, but has the ability to return it in python dict format too, whic=
h
>> looked like probably the best format to use. Here is the test I tried
>>=20
>> <snip>
>> xapi.op(cmd=3D'show devices connected', cmd_xml=3DTrue )
>> MyDict=3Dxapi.xml_python()
>> print (type(MyDict))
>> print (MyDict)
>> <snip>
>>=20
>> and I get: (This displays only 2 firewalls of the 180, so you can see the=

>> structure, and that python does say it is a "dict")
>>=20
>> bertha bin # ./test.py
>> <class 'dict'>
>> {'response': {'result': {'devices': {'entry': [{'av-version': '1391-1863'=
,
>> 'unsupported-version': False, 'ip-address': '1.8.2.8', 'sw-version':
>> '4.1.9', 'vsys': {'entry': [{'name': 'vsys1', 'shared-policy-md5sum':
>> '8a8dcd146e24bd750ae571059bc09210', 'shared-policy-status': None,
>> 'display-name': 'vsys1'}]}, 'uptime': '350 days, 14:29:49',
>> 'threat-version': '460-2394', 'operational-mode': 'normal', 'multi-vsys':=

>> False, 'global-protect-client-package-version': '0.0.0', 'app-version':
>> '460-2394', 'model': 'PA-200', 'connected': True, 'name': '001606000002',=

>> 'family': '200', 'url-filtering-version': '4390', 'vpn-disable-mode':
>> False, 'logdb-version': '4.1.2', 'serial': '001606000002', 'hostname':
>> 'bob-int-fw'}, {'av-version': '1391-1863', 'unsupported-version': False,
>> 'ip-address': '1.9.8.8', 'sw-version': '4.1.9', 'vsys': {'entry':
>> [{'name': 'vsys1', 'shared-policy-md5sum':
>> '8a8dcd146e24bd750ae571059bc09210', 'shared-policy-status': None,
>> 'display-name': 'vsys1'}]}, 'uptime': '358 days, 0:03:20',
>> 'threat-version': '460-2394', 'operational-mode': 'normal', 'multi-vsys':=

>> False, 'global-protect-client-package-version': '0.0.0', 'app-version':
>> '460-2394', 'model': 'PA-200', 'connected': True, 'name': '001606000009',=

>> 'family': '200', 'url-filtering-version': '4390', 'vpn-disable-mode':
>> False, 'logdb-version': '4.1.2', 'serial': '001606008639', 'hostname':
>> 'bib-int-fw'}, <****repeats for 180 firewalls****> ]}}, 'status':
>> 'success'}}
>>=20
>>=20
>> What I want is to parse through each firewall grabbing the "ip-address"
>> value so that I can dump it to a list:
>>=20
>> <ip>
>> <ip>
>> <ip>
>>=20
>> For use in another network management tool so I don't rely on outsourced
>> help to remember to place teh firewalls into the correct tools.
>>=20
>> But dang if every dict tutorial seems to deal with slightly simpler
>> looking structures than what this puts out. I would be very appreciative
>> with help stepping out of the 6 line "address book/grocery list" example
>> world for a taste of something useful :-)
>>=20
>> Maybe to a Python coder, it maybe a simple even be able to randomly
>> reference a firewall index number and teh value in this structure so one
>> can easily just pluck any A/V pair at will.. just not for me yet :-D
>=20
> Look at your dict (I use the name 'd' instead of 'MyDict'):
>=20
> d =3D {"response": {"result": ...}
>=20
> So
>=20
> d["response"]
>=20
> will give you=20
>=20
> {"result": {"devices": ...}
>=20
> A good tool to explore a data structure like this is the interactive=20
> interpreter. If you invoke the script with
>=20
> python -i test.py
>=20
> you have all its global variables available, i. e.
>=20
>>>> MyDict
> { ... } # you should see the dictionary contents
>=20
>=20
> On we go:
>=20
> d["response"]["result"]
>=20
> will give
>=20
> {"devices": {"entry": ...}
>=20
> Next step:
>=20
> d["response"]["result"]["devices"]
>=20
> -->
>=20
> {"entry": [...]
>=20
> That's a list for change, so you loop over it:
>=20
> entries =3D d["response"]["result"]["devices"]["entry"]
> for entry in entries:
>    print(entry) # --> {..., 'ip-address': '1.8.2.8', ... }
>=20
> So the final code is:
>=20
> for entry in d["response"]["result"]["devices"]["entry"]:
>    print(entry["ip-address"])
>=20
>=20
> --=20
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list