Upgrades break your stuff.... python 3.4 vs python 3.7

So...  The new version of PRTG rolled out and Python 3.4 is now deprecated and Python 3.7 is a thing. 

What does that mean for me? 

Everything I wrote before is now broke....

so...  that big chunk about paepy...  you can forget all that.

Luckily, I spent the time figuring out how to make all this work.


starting point...

result = []

result is going to hold our collection of strings that we'll add together prior to dumping into PRTG.


Next bit.. 

We need this bit to create the proper JSON format before we start dumping stuff in. 

 result.append(" { \"prtg\" :{ \"text\": \"OK\", \"result\":[")


Second bit... 
result.append("{\"channel\": \"name of the thingy\", \"unit\": \"Custom\", \"value\": " + value_of_importance + ", \"is_float\": \"True\"  , \"primary_channel\": \"True\", \"warning\":\"0\", \"is_limit_mode\": \"True\", \"limit_min_error\":\"0.5\", \"limit_max_error\":\"1.5\", \"limit_error_msg\":\"the message\"}")

So... you're going to have to escape a lot of quotes.  General stuff....  escaping quotes is \".   So if you want a quote (")  you need to write \" to get a quote and not finish the line.

It's a bit pain to say the least.

The not so much pain is that the end result can be dumped into a JSON validator and you can find what needs to be fixed and what is wrong.

I like this one.  https://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/

Other web pages I found valuable:

  https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/80232-how-can-i-monitor-sigfox-callbacks-with-prtg#reply-276903

https://www.paessler.com/manuals/prtg/custom_sensors

Please use the previous article I wrote on troubleshooting to find the actual JSON output and dump that into a validator to make sure your JSON is good before pulling your hair out.  The big thing that is going to be a problem is adding the correct amount of commas after the channels.  

One comma at the end of each channel, except for the last one.

Use the len() command to solve that problem.

To be more specific.....   len() = blah.

Create another variable...

currentRun = 0

Increment variable at the end of the for statement.

if len() > currentRun:

    result.append(",")    #add a a comma

That should be sufficient...

Now....   One everything is done...  

Need to add this bit to the result so we can the end of the JSON.

result.append("]}}")

Ok... got that...  

Now everything is is stuffed into result, but we need to get rid of the commas that normally show up when you just add a bunch of strings together.....

So...

finalResult = ""

         for items in result:

             finalResult += items

    

print(finalResult)

And with that print statement, we're done.

We've got rid of commas in the wrong place, got rid of paepy, and upgraded from Python 3.4 to Python 3.7.....

Looks like we're good.