title: Write list of nested dictionaries to excel file in python
body: <p>I have a list of nested dictionaries that looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[{'posts': {'item_1': 1,
                              'item_2': 8,
                              'item_3': 105,
                              'item_4': 324,
                              'item_5': 313, }},
                   {'edits': {'item_1': 1,
                              'item_2': 8,
                              'item_3': 61,
                              'item_4': 178,
                              'item_5': 163}},
                   {'views': {'item_1': 2345,
                              'item_2': 330649,
                              'item_3': 12920402,
                              'item_4': 46199102,
                              'item_5': 43094955}}]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I would like to write it to an excel file in this format:</p>
  
  <pre><code>+--------+-------+-------+-----------+
  |        | posts | edits |   views   |
  +--------+-------+-------+-----------+
  | item_1 |     1 |     1 |      2345 |
  | item_2 |     8 |     8 |    330649 |
  | item_3 |   105 |    61 |  12920402 |
  | item_4 |   324 |   178 |  46199102 |
  | item_5 |   313 |   163 | 430949955 |
  +--------+-------+-------+-----------+
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I am using the <code>xlsxwriter</code> library and trying the following and variations on the following without success:</p>
  
  <pre><code>for item in data:
      for col_name, data in item.iteritems():
          col += 1
          worksheet.write(row, col, col_name)
          for row_name, row_data in data.iteritems():
              col += 1
              worksheet.write(row, col, row_name)
              worksheet.write(row + 1, col, row_data)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm wondering if it makes sense to rework my nested dictionary object or is it possible to write to excel in it's current form?</p>
  
  <p>When I say without much success i mean, that I can get it to write certain thigns to the excel file, like column names or row or the data, but I am unable to get it to write like pictured above.  I'm not getting errors, I suspect i jsut don't know how to unpack this object properly to loop through it.  In the code above,  I am given a combination of row and column names on row 1 and all of the values on row 2.</p>
  
  <p>My output for the code above is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>+--+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------+----------+----------+--------+----------+--------+
  |  | posts | item_4 | item_5 | item_2 | item_3 | item_1 | edits | item_4 | item_5 | item_2 | item_3 | item_1 | views |  item_4  |  item_5  | item_2 |  item_3  | item_1 |
  +--+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------+----------+----------+--------+----------+--------+
  |  |       |    324 |    313 |      8 |    105 |      1 |       |    178 |    163 |      8 |     61 |      1 |       | 46199102 | 43094955 | 330649 | 12920402 |   2345 |
  +--+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+-------+----------+----------+--------+----------+--------+
  </code></pre>