Read a json file, find and replace double quotes and write new json file

Question

I have a JSON file which looks like:

[
 {
   "story_id": xx,
   "line_number": 109,
   "sentence": "fhsabdajbndkjlabhfegbdajbdhj",
   "ner": "{'gfjghj': 'PERSON', 'hjbhjb': 'DATE'}",
   "PROPN": "['vhjb', 'ghjhb']",
   "Best": 1
 }
]

I want to find starting and ending "(double-quotes) and replace with empty, in tags ner and PROPN.

The output should be a json file, and data should be like:

 [
 {
   "story_id": xx,
   "line_number": 109,
   "sentence": "fhsabdajbndkjlabhfegbdajbdhj",
   "ner": {'gfjghj': 'PERSON', 'hjbhjb': 'DATE'},
   "PROPN": ['vhjb', 'ghjhb'],
   "Best": 1
 }
]    

I tried this:

import json
with open('path/to/file.json','r',encoding ='utf-8') as f:
    data = json.load(f)

for item in data:
    item['ner'] = item['ner'].replace('"{', '{').replace('}"', '}').replace('"[', '[').replace(']"', ']')

with open('path/to/output_file.json'', 'w') as f:
    json.dump(data, f)

While running this, I'm getting "UnicodeDecodeError".

Can any one help for these?

Thanks in Advance.

Answer 1

Use ast module

Ex:

import json
with open('path/to/file.json','r',encoding ='utf-8') as f:
    data = json.load(f)

for item in data:
    item['ner'] = ast.literal_eval(item['ner'])

with open('path/to/output_file.json'', 'w') as f:
    json.dump(data, f)