---
id: dictor
version: "0.1.12"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: dormant
---

# dictor — an elegant dictionary and JSON handler

License: permissive · Maintenance: dormant · Downloads: 570.7K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Dictor is a dictionary and JSON navigation utility that abstracts away the boilerplate of nested key lookups and exception handling. Instead of chaining dict.get() calls or writing try/except blocks to safely traverse nested structures, you pass a dot-separated path string to dictor() and receive the value at that location—or a fallback value if the key is missing. It handles lists within dicts, dicts within lists, case-insensitive key matching, custom path separators for keys containing dots, and key-based search across entire structures.

The package solves a common pain point in JSON and dictionary processing: safely extracting values from complex, unpredictable nested structures without defensive coding. It is most useful when parsing API responses, configuration files, or other external JSON data where the structure may vary or keys may be absent. No runtime dependencies means it installs cleanly into any Python environment.

Use it for:

- Extract nested values from API responses without repeated try/except blocks or chained .get() calls.
- Parse configuration files or JSON data with optional or variable structure, using fallback defaults.
- Search for all occurrences of a specific key across a deeply nested dictionary or list-of-dicts structure.
- Access list elements by index within a nested path (e.g., 'characters.Lonestar.items.0').
- Handle keys containing dots or special characters by using a custom path separator or escape sequences.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Dictor provides a simplified interface for navigating and extracting values from nested dictionaries and JSON structures using dot-separated path notation, with built-in fallback handling for missing keys.

Yes, if you frequently work with nested JSON or dictionary structures and want to reduce boilerplate. No, if you need active maintenance—the project is dormant with last release on 2023-09-15. The high install friction (source-only distribution) is a minor drawback but not a blocker for most use cases.

## Install

pip install dictor
uv add dictor
poetry add dictor

## Installing dictor

Before you install: High install friction due to source-only distribution (no wheels). Maintenance is dormant—last release was 2023-09-15, though the repository remains active with a recent commit in 2023-09-19. No runtime dependencies.

License in practice: MIT license is permissive and places no restrictions on use, modification, or redistribution in commercial or private projects.

Quickstart:

pip install dictor

from dictor import dictor
import json

data = {"characters": {"Lonestar": {"id": 55923, "items": ["space winnebago"]}}}
print(dictor(data, 'characters.Lonestar.items.0'))

Python 2 support is being dropped in version 0.1.13 and later; verify your Python version compatibility if pinning to an older release.

Verify before relying:

- Whether version 0.1.13 or later (with Python 2 support removed) has been released, given the fact sheet shows 0.1.12 as current.
- Actual Python version support range for the current release (requires_python is empty in metadata).
- Performance characteristics when handling very large nested structures or deeply nested paths.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: high
- Maintenance: dormant
- Downloads: 570.7K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

nested dictionary access, json path lookup, safe dict key retrieval, deep nested dict navigation, json structure parsing, dictionary traversal helper, missing key fallback, json-parsing, dict-utilities

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/dictor) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/dictor/)