Parse Security Logs in Python | Dataford Interview Questions

Write a program in Python to parse a complex JSON string, extract specific security log events, and format them for an alerting pipeline. Implement parse_security_events(json_string, event_types), where the valid JSON may contain arbitrarily nested objects and arrays, and matching records contain event_type, timestamp, severity, actor, and resource. Return normalized alert dictionaries for matching event types, sorted by timestamp and then event type.

Constraints

The input is a valid JSON string.
The decoded JSON contains only dictionaries, lists, strings, numbers, booleans, or null values.
Every matching event record contains event_type, timestamp, severity, actor, and resource.
Timestamps are ISO 8601 strings whose lexicographic order matches chronological order.
The total number of JSON values is at most 10^5.
event_types contains distinct strings.

Function Signature

def parse_security_events(json_string, event_types):

Your question is Parse Security Logs in Python. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

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Problem

Constraints

The input is a valid JSON string.
The decoded JSON contains only dictionaries, lists, strings, numbers, booleans, or null values.
Every matching event record contains event_type, timestamp, severity, actor, and resource.
Timestamps are ISO 8601 strings whose lexicographic order matches chronological order.
The total number of JSON values is at most 10^5.
event_types contains distinct strings.

Function Signature

def parse_security_events(json_string, event_types):

Your question is Parse Security Logs in Python. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.