Parse JSON response from OpenAI API containing content or refusal

openai-api-content-or-refusal.py

import json
import logging

# Set up logger
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.WARNING)
logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

# Modified JSON from https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference/chat/object
response_str = json.dumps({
  "id": "chatcmpl-123456",
  "object": "chat.completion",
  "created": 1728933352,
  "model": "gpt-4o-2024-08-06",
  "choices": [
    {
      "index": 0,
      "message": {
        "role": "assistant",
        "content": None,
        "refusal": "Refusing to answer"
      },
      "logprobs": None,
      "finish_reason": "stop"
    }
  ],
  "usage": {
    "prompt_tokens": 19,
    "completion_tokens": 10,
    "total_tokens": 29,
    "prompt_tokens_details": {
      "cached_tokens": 0
    },
    "completion_tokens_details": {
      "reasoning_tokens": 0,
      "accepted_prediction_tokens": 0,
      "rejected_prediction_tokens": 0
    }
  },
  "system_fingerprint": "fp_6b68a8204b"
})

class JSONObject:
    def __init__(self, dictionary):
        for key, value in dictionary.items():
            if isinstance(value, dict):
                setattr(self, key, JSONObject(value))
            elif isinstance(value, list):
                setattr(self, key, [JSONObject(item) if isinstance(item, dict) else item for item in value])
            else:
                setattr(self, key, value)

    def __repr__(self):
        return str(self.__dict__)  # Provides a readable string representation of the object

# Convert JSON string to custom objects
response = json.loads(response_str, object_hook=lambda d: JSONObject(d))

# Parse content or refusal in API response
try:
    # Ensure there are choices in the response
    if not response.choices:
        raise ValueError(f"The response does not contain any choices.")

    # Extract the first choice and its message
    first_choice = response.choices[0]
    message = getattr(first_choice, "message", None)

    # Ensure the message has the required attributes
    if not message or not hasattr(message, "role"):
        raise ValueError(f"The response message lacks the required 'role' field. Response:\n{response}")

    # Use content if available, otherwise fallback to refusal
    content = getattr(message, "content", None)
    refusal = getattr(message, "refusal", None)
    if not content and refusal:
        logger.warning(f"Message content is empty. Using 'refusal' instead. Response:\n{response}")

    if not content and not refusal:
        raise ValueError(f"Content and refusal empty in response. Response:\n{response}")

    print('Content or refusal: ', content or refusal)

except (AttributeError, IndexError, TypeError) as e:
    raise ValueError(f"Invalid response structure. Response:\n{response}") from e

Run snippet:

1. Open Terminal
2. Enter python
3. Copy and paste the snippet and press Enter key

Expected output:

WARNING:__main__:Message content is empty. Using 'refusal' instead. Response:
{'id': 'chatcmpl-123456', 'object': 'chat.completion', 'created': 1728933352, 'model': 'gpt-4o-2024-08-06', 'choices': [{'index': 0, 'message': {'role': 'assistant', 'content': None, 'refusal': 'Refusing to answer'}, 'logprobs': None, 'finish_reason': 'stop'}], 'usage': {'prompt_tokens': 19, 'completion_tokens': 10, 'total_tokens': 29, 'prompt_tokens_details': {'cached_tokens': 0}, 'completion_tokens_details': {'reasoning_tokens': 0, 'accepted_prediction_tokens': 0, 'rejected_prediction_tokens': 0}}, 'system_fingerprint': 'fp_6b68a8204b'}
Content or refusal:  Refusing to answer