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How to dump from dictionary with multiple keys for a value into a json to write a file

I have a dictionary. It has 2 keys for 1 value. Multiple items are inside. I want to dump it to json for the purpose of writing to file. When I try below code, I get nothing. What is your suggestion for this operation?
def __init__(self):
self.news_dict = {}
def add_to_dict(self, newspaper, topic, news):
if not (newspaper,topic) in self.news_dict:
self.news_dict[newspaper,topic] = []
if not news in self.news_dict[newspaper,topic]:
self.news_dict[newspaper,topic].append(news)
.... in another part of code
for descriptions in data["result"]:
self.add_to_dict(descriptions["source"], category, descriptions["description"])
output_writing = json.dumps(self.news_dict)
print(output_writing)
with open(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) + '/record.json', "w") as json_file:
json.dump(output_writing, json_file)
# read json string
with open(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) + '/record.json') as json_file:
output_reading = json.load(json_file)
# json string to dic
output_reading = json.loads(output_reading)

Your fundamental problem is that Python dictionaries can have data structures as keys, but JSON hashes require keys to be strings. There is therefore no way to represent the Python structure as JSON.
If you just need a way to serialize/deserialize data, you can use pickle. If you want it to be human readable, you need to write a custom serialization module.
If you want it to look like JSON, your best bet is to write a custom function that converts your data structure into one where every key has been converted to a string that is your custom JSON representation of the data structure, and then convert THAT into JSON. It won't be pretty, and also in deserializing it you will have to reverse the process.

Parse an embedded object (JSON) into an ordered dictionary in Python

I am looking to parse some JSON into a dictionary but need to preserve order for one particular part of the dictionary.
I know that I can parse the entire JSON file into an ordered dictionary (ex. Can I get JSON to load into an OrderedDict?) but this is not quite what I'm looking for.
{
"foo": "bar",
"columns":
{
"col_1": [],
"col_2": []
}
}
In this example, I would want to parse the entire file in as a dictionary with the "columns" portion being an OrderedDict. Is it possible to get that granular with the JSON parsing tools while guaranteeing that order is preserved throughout? Thank you!

From the comments meanwhile, I gathered that a complete, nested OrderedDict is fine as well, but this could be a solution too, if you don't mind using some knowledge about the names of the columns:
import json
from collections import OrderedDict
def hook(partialjson):
if "col_1" in partialjson:
return OrderedDict(partialjson)
return dict(partialjson)
result = json.loads("YOUR JSON STRING", object_hook=hook)
Hope this helps!

convert string representation of a dict inside json dict value to dict

Hello all and sorry if the title was worded poorly. I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around how to solve this issue I have encountered. I would have liked to simply pass a dict as the value for this key in my json obj but sadly I have to pass it as a string. So, I have a json dict object that looks like this
data = {"test": "Fuzz", "options": "'{'size':'Regular','connection':'unconnected'}'"}. Obviously, I would prefer that the second dict value weren't a string representation of a dictionary but rather a dictionary. Is the best route here to just strip the second and second to last single quotes for the data[options] or is there a better alternative?
Sorry for any confusion. This is how the json object looks after I perform
json.dump(data, <filename>)
The value for options can be thought of as another variable say x and it's equivalent to '{'size':'Regular','connection':'unconnected'}'
I could do x[1:-1] but I'm not sure if that is the most pythonic way to do things here.

import ast
bad_string_dict = "'{'size':'Regular','connection':'unconnected'}'"
good_string_dict = bad_string_dict.strip("'")
good_dict = ast.literal_eval(good_string_dict)
print(good_dict)
You will have to strip quotation mark, no other way around

Given OP's comments I suggest the following:
Set the environment variable to a known data format (example: json/yaml/...), not a specific language (python)
Use the json module (or the format you've chosen) to load the data
The data should look like this:
raw_data = {"test": "Fuzz", "options": "{\"size\": \"Regular\", \"connection\": \"unconnected\"}"}
And the code should look like this:
raw_options = raw_data['options']
options = json.loads(raw_options)
data = {**raw_data, 'options': options}

Check values inside of json data

Could you please help me? I have response with json data and would like to check not only the structure of the json but also some values inside. json data is represented by build-in python types (dict, list, str, ...). Could you please advise easy way to check data inside some arbitrary json in python?
For example let's take following json:
{"employees":[
{"firstName":"John", "lastName":"Doe"},
{"firstName":"Anna", "lastName":"Smith"},
{"firstName":"Peter", "lastName":"Jones"}
]}
I would like to check that responses have 3 elements in employees lists with specific values in firstName and lastName.
I understand that if I have json as a python dict I can check any value inside just by doing:
data["employees"][0]["firstName"] == ???
Maybe in this simple case it is not big deal. But in my case I have responses with complex structures where interesting (to me) data are deep inside in different places. It is hard to write something like data['a']['b'][0]['c'][1] for each value which should be checked...is there a better way to check data inside complex json?

If you would like to check that you have 3 elements in employees list with specific firstName you could use check_json_data function from here https://github.com/mlyundin/check-json-data
data = {"employees":[
{"firstName":"John", "lastName":"Doe"},
{"firstName":"Anna", "lastName":"Smith"},
{"firstName":"Peter", "lastName":"Jones"}
]}
exp_data = {"employees": list_verifier([{"firstName":"John"},
{"firstName": "Anna"},
{"firstName": "Peter"}],
linker=lambda item1, item2, i1, i2:item1['firstName'] == item2['firstName'], strict=True)}
print check_json_data(exp_data, data)

Parse JSON in python to a dictionary

A bit lost after much research. My code below parses the JSON to a dictionary I have thought using json load
response = json.load(MSW) # -->Will take a JSON String & Turn it into a python dict
Using the iteration below I return a series like this which is fine
{u'swell': {u'components': {u'primary': {u'direction': 222.5}}}}
{u'swell': {u'components': {u'primary': {u'direction': 221.94}}}}
ourResult = response
for rs in ourResult:
print rs
But how oh how do I access the 222.5 value. The above appears to just be one long string eg response[1] and not a dictionary structure at all.
In short all I need is the numerical value (which I assume is a part of that sting) so I can test conditions in the rest of my code. Is is a dictionary? With thanks as new and lost

You have to use python syntax as follows:
>>> print response['swell']['components']['primary']['direction']
222.5

Just access the nested dictionaries, unwrapping each layer with an additional key:
for rs in ourResult:
print rs['components']['primary']['direction']