Key must not contain . error in pymongo

Question 1

In the 14th line:

u'.': {u'timeAcquiringMicros': {u'R': 218733L, u'W': 30803L}, u'timeLockedMicros': {u'R': 311478L, u'W': 145679L}}}

For future safety, iterate through the keys, replace '.'s with '_' or something, and then perform a write.

Question 2

Here is a function which will remove '.' from your keys:

def fix_dict(data, ignore_duplicate_key=True):
    """
    Removes dots "." from keys, as mongo doesn't like that.
    If the key is already there without the dot, the dot-value get's lost.
    This modifies the existing dict!

    :param ignore_duplicate_key: True: if the replacement key is already in the dict, now the dot-key value will be ignored.
                                 False: raise ValueError in that case.
    """
    if isinstance(data, (list, tuple)):
        list2 = list()
        for e in data:
            list2.append(fix_dict(e))
        # end if
        return list2
    if isinstance(data, dict):
        # end if
        for key, value in data.items():
            value = fix_dict(value)
            old_key = key
            if "." in key:
                key = old_key.replace(".", "")
                if key not in data:
                    data[key] = value
                else:
                    error_msg = "Dict key {key} containing a \".\" was ignored, as {replacement} already exists".format(
                        key=key_old, replacement=key)
                    if force:
                        import warnings
                        warnings.warn(error_msg, category=RuntimeWarning)
                    else:
                        raise ValueError(error_msg)
                    # end if
                # end if
                del data[old_key]
            # end if
            data[key] = value
        # end for
        return data
    # end if
    return data
# end def

Question 3

A solution that worked for me was to wrap the dictionary inside a python list:

new_item_to_store = list(dict_to_store.items())

Question 4

An interesting point is that the keys through the dot are not saved for insert_one And if you save the object, and then update it via find_one_and_update, the keys through the dot will not throw an error

Error:

product = {'name': 'test_product', 'links': {'test.xyz': 'https://...'}}
product_id = products_collection.insert_one(product).inserted_id

Working version:

product = {'name': 'test_product', 'links': {}}
product_id = self.products_collection.insert_one(product).inserted_id
products_collection.find_one_and_update(
    {'_id': product_id},
    {'$set': {'links': {'test.xyz': 'https://...'}}}
)