Dictionary where the value for a key is an array - how do you do it?

[gregaryb]

I currently have this declaration:

arrayLinksByTrade = [{"strDesc": "GARDENERS", "arrayLinks": DoGetAlphabeticLinks("https://www.yellowpages.com.au/xxxx/gardeners-14621-category-")},
                     {"strDesc": "CLEANERS", "arraylinks": DoGetAlphabeticLinks("https://www.yellowpages.com.au/xxxx/home-cleaning-13986-category-")},
                     #{"strDesc": "PAINTERS", "arraylinks": DoGetAlphabeticLinks("https://www.yellowpages.com.au/xxxx/painters-decorators-17302-category-")},
                     #{"strDesc": "CONCRETERS", "arraylinks": DoGetAlphabeticLinks("https://www.yellowpages.com.au/xxxx/concrete-contractors-34622-category-")},
                     #{"strDesc": "ARBORISTS", "arraylinks": DoGetAlphabeticLinks("https://www.yellowpages.com.au/xxxx/tree-stump-removal-services-28061-category-")},
                     #{"strDesc": "PET CARERS", "arraylinks": DoGetAlphabeticLinks("https://www.yellowpages.com.au/xxxx/pet-care-27995-category-")},
                     #{"strDesc": "GLAZIERS", "arraylinks": DoGetAlphabeticLinks("https://www.yellowpages.com.au/xxxx/glazier-glass-replacement-services-27049-category-")},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     #{"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""},
                     {"strDesc": "XXXX", "arraylinks": ""}]

DoGetAlphabeticLinks(...) simply returns an array of strings

It all works just fine!

My arrayLinksByTrade contains the following as expected.

[{'strDesc': 'GARDENERS', 'arrayLinks': ['https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-a1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-b1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-c1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-d1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-e1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-f1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-g1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-h1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-i1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-j1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-k1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-l1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-m1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-n1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com.au/act/gardeners-14621-category-o1', 'https://www.yellowpages.com

Then I get to this part of my code:

for nJ in range(1, 7):
    arrayAlphabeticLinkURLs = arrayLinksByTrade[nJ].get("arrayLinks")
    strTradeDesc = arrayLinksByTrade[nJ].get("strDesc")
    if (arrayAlphabeticLinkURLs == None) or (strTradeDesc == None):
        print("ERROR at nJ == " + str(nJ))

So it is iterating through arrayLinksByTrade.

Upon the first iteration strTradeDesc contains "GARDENERS" as expected.

But arrayAlphabeticLinkURLs contains None

WTF is going on here? Why am I getting None. According to the debug watch I have each element of my array DOES contain the key 'arrayLinks'
So why can't .get("arrayLinks") find it????

Edited July 21 by gregaryb