get value of a json/dict string

Question

I have following string:

"root['bananas']['costs'][0]"

I want to get costs out of it in a reusable way -> the value I want to extract will always before the [0]. What is the best way to do this?

Answer 1

Well If you want to get the element before the last one (with no relation if its a zero or not) and you know that you would have quotes ' ' wrapped around the target word you could use something like this:

str = "root['bananas']['costs'][0]"

str.split("[")[-2].rstrip("']").lstrip("'")

Again if your output is more random than this solution will have to be edited.