How to call a specific, unknown Python object attribute?

Question

I'm working to create a simple Python script that will ultimately tell you how many blog entries were posted in a given month, and the pyblog app is proving very helpful.

However, when I create the blog object, I don't know how to access it's various attributes. I can print them all out by printing one item from the dictionary, as shown (in excerpts) below:

print blog.get_recent_posts(1)

[{'mt_keywords': 'Storage in 2010, Storage, Twitter', 'permaLink': 'http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/IT-watch-blog/cream-of-the-twitter-crop-storage-edition/', 'wp_slug': 'cream-of-the-twitter-crop-storage-edition', 'description': '<a href="http://http.cdnlayer.com/itke/blogs.dir/141/files/2010/06/follow.jpg"&gt;&lt;img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1148" style="margin: 4px" src="http://http.cdnlayer.com/itke/blogs.dir/141/files/2010/06/follow.jpg" alt="" width="279" height="157" /></a>Here they are, this month\'s specialized top 10 Twitter accounts. From IT pros with impressive storage insight to the industry greats sending out updates on their company\'s innovations, check out these folks on Twitter for daily bites of what you need to know about storage.\n<ul>\n\t<li><a href="http://twitter.com/3parfarley" target="_blank">3parfarley</a>: Marc Farley, the blogger behind StorageRap, sends out bite-sized bits of storage info. He\'s also one of <a title="Marc Farley" href="http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/expert/KnowledgebaseBio/0,289623,sid5_cid382505,00.html" target="_blank">SearchStorage.com\'s experts</a>.</li>\n\t<li><a href="http://twitter.com/storagenerve" target="_blank">StorageNerve</a>: Devang Panchigar is in the storage/virtualization/computer industry; he blogs over at StorageNerve and Gestalt IT.</li>\n\t<li><a href="http://twitter.com/skenniston" target="_blank">skenniston</a>: Follow the Storage Alchemist himself.</li>\n\t<li><a href="http://twitter.com/storageanarchy" target="_blank">StorageAnarchy</a>: From the blogger behind Storage Anarchy, get some storage rebel yells in 140 characters or less.</li><li>', 'title': 'Cream of the Twitter Crop: Storage Edition', 'post_status': 'publish', 'date_created_gmt': <DateTime '20100601T19:27:17' at 2853530>, 'mt_excerpt': '', 'userid': '288', 'dateCreated': <DateTime '20100601T14:27:17' at 28533a0>, 'custom_fields': [{'value': '', 'id': '1317', 'key': 'brightcove_code'}, {'value': 'http://bit.ly/d0Rywl', 'id': '1403', 'key': 'topsy_short_url'}, {'value': '1', 'id': '1319', 'key': '_edit_last'}, {'value': '1275511812', 'id': '1318', 'key': '_edit_lock'}, {'value': 'http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/IT-watch-blog/cream-of-the-twitter-crop-storage-edition/', 'id': '1402', 'key': '_topsy_long_url'}], 'wp_author_display_name': 'Melanie Yarbrough', 'link': 'http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/IT-watch-blog/cream-of-the-twitter-crop-storage-edition/', 'mt_text_more': u'<a href="http://twitter.com/storagetexan" target="_blank">StorageTexan</a>: He\'s got 15 years in the IT industry, 10 of them spent - proudly - as a storage geek.</li>\n\t<li><a href="http://twitter.com/storage_wonk" target="_blank">Storage_Wonk</a>: Xiotech\'s principle architect blogs over at Storage Wonk.</li>\n\t<li><a href="http://twitter.com/storageio" target="_blank">storageio</a>: Greg Schulz is an independent IT advisor and consultant, and he blogs over at the Storageio blog.</li>\n\t<li><a href="http://twitter.com/saveonstorage" target="_blank">SaveOnStorage</a>: If you\'re looking to lower your TCO, check out Hitachi Data Systems\' Twitter account dedicated to just that with sustainable storage investments. Vendor(ish).</li>\n\t<li><a href="http://twitter.com/seagate" target="_blank">Seagate</a>: The "world leader" in storage devices. Vendor(ish).</li>\n\t<li><a href="http://twitter.com/compellent" target="_blank">Compellent</a>: Compellent\'s official Twitter for all things enterprise storage. Vendor(ish).</li>\n</ul>\nAnd there\'s always us. <a href="http://twitter.com/itke" target="_blank">Follow ITKE on Twitter</a> for updates on the IT community and industry. Did we miss someone? Let me know at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected]</a> or at the <a href="http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/" target="_blank">ITKE Community Forum</a>.\n\n<em>Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at\xa0<a title="http://ITKnowledgeExchange." href="http://itknowledgeexchange.com/" target="_blank">ITKnowledgeExchange.com</a>. Follow her on <a href="http://twitter.com/myarbrough" target="_blank">Twitter </a>or send her an email at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected]</a>.</em>', 'mt_allow_comments': 1, 'wp_password': '', 'postid': '1061', 'wp_author_id': '288', 'categories': ['Storage in 2010', 'Storage', 'Twitter'], 'mt_allow_pings': 1}]

But how can I just get it to provide that DateTime information?

Answer 1

If blog.get_recent_posts(1) was a dictionary, the print would show leading and trailing braces, while what you're showing starts in the middle of nowhere and ends in another middle of nowhere -- absolutely absurd.

I'm going to assume you made some weird copy and past error and that the thing is a dictionary. In that case, getting for example the creation date is easy, just an indexing:

print blog.get_recent_posts(1)['dateCreated']

Edit: the OP edited the Q to show the whole result (and mentioned some helpful error messages) which, all together, makes clear the function's result is a list with one dictionary in it. Given that this is the case, the correct statement becomes:

print blog.get_recent_posts(1)[0]['dateCreated']