pythonadvanced15 minutes

Build a Function to Serialize and Deserialize Nested Dictionaries with Custom Rules

Create a Python function to serialize a nested dictionary into a custom string format and another function to revert it back, handling complex nesting and type conversions.

Challenge prompt

Write two functions: serialize_dict and deserialize_dict. The serialize_dict function takes a nested dictionary and converts it into a custom string format where keys and values are joined by '=', pairs are separated by ';', and nested dictionaries are enclosed in parentheses, preserving nesting structure. The deserialize_dict function takes such a string and reconstructs the original dictionary, converting numeric strings back to integers or floats as appropriate. For example, given {'a': 1, 'b': {'c': 2, 'd': 3}}, serialize_dict should return 'a=1;b=(c=2;d=3)'. Then deserialize_dict('a=1;b=(c=2;d=3)') should return the original nested dictionary.

Guidance

• Think recursively to handle arbitrarily deep nested dictionaries during serialization and deserialization.
• Ensure to properly distinguish between string values and nested dictionaries during both operations.
• Implement numeric detection to convert strings back to integers or floats in deserialization.

Hints

• You can use recursion inside both functions to process nested dictionaries.
• Use parentheses to mark boundaries of nested dictionaries during serialization.
• When deserializing, carefully parse substrings to isolate keys and values and convert numeric strings.

Starter code

def serialize_dict(d):
    # Implement this function
    pass

def deserialize_dict(s):
    # Implement this function
    pass

Expected output

{"a": 1, "b": {"c": 2, "d": 3}}

Core concepts

recursionstring parsingdata serializationtype conversion

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