Converts a newick file into JSON format for d3/TreeWidget javascript component

Newick2JSON.py

import sys
from ete2 import Tree
import random

def get_json(node):
    # Read ETE tag for duplication or speciation events
    if not hasattr(node, 'evoltype'):
        dup = random.sample(['N','Y'], 1)[0]
    elif node.evoltype == "S":
        dup = "N"
    elif node.evoltype == "D":
        dup = "Y"

    node.name = node.name.replace("'", '')
        
    json = { "name": node.name, 
             "display_label": node.name,
             "duplication": dup,
             "branch_length": str(node.dist),
             "common_name": node.name,
             "seq_length": 0,
             "type": "node" if node.children else "leaf",
             "uniprot_name": "Unknown",
             }
    if node.children:
        json["children"] = []
        for ch in node.children:
            json["children"].append(get_json(ch))
    return json


if __name__ == '__main__':
    if len(sys.argv) > 1:
        t = Tree(sys.argv[1])
        
    else:
        # create a random example tree
        t = Tree()

        t.populate(100, random_branches=True)
                   
    # TreeWidget seems to fail with simple quotes
    print str(get_json(t)).replace("'", '"')