Python: Saving dictionary to .py file

Question

I have got a dictionary this_dict produced in a python script that I would like to write to a separate python module dict_file.py. This would allow me to load the dictionary in another script by importing dict_file.

I thought a possible way of doing this was using JSON, so I used the following code:

import json

this_dict = {"Key1": "Value1",
             "Key2": "Value2",
             "Key3": {"Subkey1": "Subvalue1",
                      "Subkey2": "Subvalue2"
                     }
            }

with open("dict_file.py", "w") as dict_file:
    json.dump(this_dict, dict_file, indent=4)

When I opened the resulting file in my editor, I got a nicely printed dictionary. However, the name of the dictionary in the script (this_dict) was not included in the generated dict_file.py (so only the braces and the body of the dictionary were written). How can I include the name of the dictionary too? I want it to generate dict_file.py as follows:

this_dict = {"Key1": Value1,
             "Key2": Value2,
             "Key3": {"Subkey1": Subvalue1,
                      "Subkey2": Subvalue2
                     }
            }

Answer 1

1) use file.write:

file.write('this_dict = ')
json.dump(this_dict, dict_file)

2) use write + json.dumps, which returns a string with json:

file.write('this_dict = ' + json.dumps(this_dict)

3) just print it, or use repr

file.write('this_dict = ')
file.write(repr(this_dict))
# or:
# print(this_dict, file=file)