.get("key") is enough, as the default is already None. And if you care about the default value being a particular type, when there may also be None in the inpu

.get("key") is enough, as the default is already None. And if you care about the default value being a particular type, when there may also be None in the input stream, do something like: x.get("key") or [] or str(x.get("key") or "") # Guarantee strings and avoid "None"!