Is there a way to define a XPath type query for nested python dictionaries.

Something like this:

    foo = {
      &#39;spam&#39;:&#39;eggs&#39;,
      &#39;morefoo&#39;: {
                   &#39;bar&#39;:&#39;soap&#39;,
                   &#39;morebar&#39;: {&#39;bacon&#39; : &#39;foobar&#39;}
                  }
       }

    print( foo.select(&quot;/morefoo/morebar&quot;) )
    
    &gt;&gt; {&#39;bacon&#39; : &#39;foobar&#39;}

I also needed to select nested lists ;)

This can be done easily with @jellybean&#39;s solution:

    def xpath_get(mydict, path):
        elem = mydict
        try:
            for x in path.strip(&quot;/&quot;).split(&quot;/&quot;):
                try:
                    x = int(x)
                    elem = elem[x]
                except ValueError:
                    elem = elem.get(x)
        except:
            pass
    
        return elem
    
    foo = {
      &#39;spam&#39;:&#39;eggs&#39;,
      &#39;morefoo&#39;: [{
                   &#39;bar&#39;:&#39;soap&#39;,
                   &#39;morebar&#39;: {
                               &#39;bacon&#39; : {
                                           &#39;bla&#39;:&#39;balbla&#39;
                                         }
                               }
                  },
                  &#39;bla&#39;
                  ]
       }
    
    print xpath_get(foo, &quot;/morefoo/0/morebar/bacon&quot;)

[EDIT 2016] This question and the accepted answer are ancient. The newer answers may do the job better than the original answer. However I did not test them so I won&#39;t change the accepted answer.

All Json Path-Expression Solutions on Gang of Coders

Total of 1 Json Path-Expression Solutions

Xpath like query for nested python dictionaries