How to properly handle simplejson errors?

Question

I've loaded json data to api_result variable. Now I need to extract particular fields (name, surname, city etc.). How should I verify if they are there?

api_result = json.loads(some_json_data)
if api_result.get('name'):
    # do something with name
if api_result.get('surname'):
    # do something with surname
if api_result.get('city'):
    # do something with city

Is it correct approach? Looks too complicated. Is there any way to get empty value if value is not found?

Answer 1

get() in Python has a default parameter, if the value is not found the default value will be retuned.

print dict.get("name", "<default name>")