How do I compare different values for fields returned using the python REST API?

[ng87]

I have just started playing around with the python REST API for a project i have in mind. Please forgive me as this is my first real attempt at scripting/programming anything really. I'm using Python to query Splunk.

Anyway based on the examples i found on the website, this is a part of the code:

request = urllib2.Request(base_url + '/servicesNS/%s/search/search/jobs/export' % (username), 
    data = urllib.urlencode({'search': search_query,'output_mode': 'csv'}),
    headers = { 'Authorization': ('Splunk %s' %session_key)})
search_results = urllib2.urlopen(request)
returned_data = search_results.read()

Here is an example output (i have on purpose only selected two fields and 3 events for each)

"_time",Service
"2015-06-10 18:09:08.000 BST","dnsmasq-dhcp[472]"
"2015-06-10 18:09:08.000 BST","dnsmasq-dhcp[472]"
"2015-06-10 17:48:04.000 BST","dnsmasq-dhcp[472]"

When printing the value of returned_data, i can see all the information i expect. However, the variable has a type of string so i need to convert it to something, but not sure what. The end aim is to be able to compare the different values in the fields. Would i need to convert the above output to a dictionary or a list ? Also, should i maybe be trying to export the results from splunk in a different format than csv?

[Damien_Dallimor · Accepted solution]

This is alot easier using the Splunk Python SDK

Example code doing mock String compare against the _raw field from the export search results :

import splunklib.results as results
import splunklib.client as client

def compare(val_a, val_b):
    return val_a == val_b

if __name__ == '__main__':

    service = client.connect(host='localhost',port=8089,username='admin',password='abc')
    kwargs_export = {"earliest_time": "-1h",
                  "latest_time": "now",
                  "search_mode": "normal"}
    searchquery_export = "search index=_internal"

    exportsearch_results = service.jobs.export(searchquery_export, **kwargs_export)

    reader = results.ResultsReader(exportsearch_results)

    foo_field = 'foo'
    for result in reader:
        if isinstance(result, dict):
            raw_field = result['_raw']
            print compare(raw_field,foo_field)