How to load a Python dict from a textfile into a variable

Question

I have a 2GB file titled 'Apps' that I need to import. The file is composed of nested dictionaries (snippet below). How can I import this in a way that packages the file into a dictionary variable? I realize I could open the file and simply assign, but at 2GB each, I don't want to have to open each file and make the assignment. Thanks

{
  'responseHeader':{
    'status':0,
    'QTime':35,
    'params':{
      'sort':'appTitle asc',
      'indent':'true',
      'start':'400',
      'q':'*:*',
      'wt':'python',
      'fq':['status:"A"',
        '-developerWebsite:["" TO *]',
        'intNumDownloads:[0 TO *]'],
      'rows':'450'}},
  'response':{'numFound':771005,'start':400,'docs':[]}}

Answer 1

If your file contains a well-formed Python dict, you can load it in one line like this:

with open('dictfile') as f: my_dict = eval(f.read())

The syntax

with open(filename) as f:
    # do something

is short for

f = open(filename)
# do something
f.close()

It's a good practice to get into, since it makes sure that your stream is closed at the end. You can use this for database connections, http connections etc as well.