Why "TypeError: string indices must be integers" with GitHub Issue Data?

When converting GitHub issue data from JSON format to CSV using Python, programmers may encounter the error "TypeError: string indices must be integers." To resolve this issue, it is crucial to understand the nature of the error and make necessary adjustments to the code.

The error message indicates a mismatch between the expected integer-based indices and the string indices being used in the code. When working with strings, accessing specific characters using integer indices is valid. However, this approach is not applicable to other objects, such as dictionaries or lists.

Examining the code provided reveals that the issue lies in the following line:

csv_file.writerow([item["gravatar_id"], item["position"], item["number"]])

Here, item is a dictionary, and its keys, namely "gravatar_id", "position", and "number," represent the values being written to the CSV file. The error occurs because dictionaries use string keys to access their values, not integer indices.

To rectify this issue, it is essential to modify the code to use string indices instead of integer indices. The corrected code should look like this:

csv_file.writerow([item["gravatar_id"], str(item["position"]), str(item["number"])])

By converting the numerical values to strings, the code can successfully write the data into the CSV file without encountering the "TypeError: string indices must be integers" error.