Working with JSON

Python:
Working with JSON

How to:

Python’s built-in json library simplifies the process of encoding (converting Python objects to JSON) and decoding (converting JSON to Python objects). Here’s how you can use it:

Encoding Python objects to JSON:

import json

data = {
    "name": "John Doe",
    "age": 30,
    "isEmployee": True,
    "addresses": [
        {"city": "New York", "zipCode": "10001"},
        {"city": "San Francisco", "zipCode": "94016"}
    ]
}

json_string = json.dumps(data, indent=4)
print(json_string)

Output:

{
    "name": "John Doe",
    "age": 30,
    "isEmployee": true,
    "addresses": [
        {
            "city": "New York",
            "zipCode": "10001"
        },
        {
            "city": "San Francisco",
            "zipCode": "94016"
        }
    ]
}

Decoding JSON to Python objects:

json_string = '''
{
    "name": "John Doe",
    "age": 30,
    "isEmployee": true,
    "addresses": [
        {
            "city": "New York",
            "zipCode": "10001"
        },
        {
            "city": "San Francisco",
            "zipCode": "94016"
        }
    ]
}
'''

data = json.loads(json_string)
print(data)

Output:

{
    'name': 'John Doe', 
    'age': 30, 
    'isEmployee': True, 
    'addresses': [
        {'city': 'New York', 'zipCode': '10001'}, 
        {'city': 'San Francisco', 'zipCode': '94016'}
    ]
}

Working with third-party libraries:

For complex JSON handling, such as schema validation or parsing JSON files directly from URLs, libraries like requests for HTTP requests and jsonschema for validation can be helpful.

Example with `requests` to parse JSON from a URL:

import requests

response = requests.get('https://api.example.com/data')
data = response.json()

print(data)

This snippet fetches JSON data from a given URL and directly converts it into a Python object.

Using `jsonschema` to validate JSON:

First, install the library via pip:

pip install jsonschema

Then, use it as follows:

from jsonschema import validate
import jsonschema

schema = {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "name": {"type": "string"},
        "age": {"type": "number"},
        "isEmployee": {"type": "boolean"},
    },
    "required": ["name", "age", "isEmployee"]
}

# Assuming `data` is a dictionary obtained from JSON decoding
try:
    validate(instance=data, schema=schema)
    print("Valid JSON data.")
except jsonschema.exceptions.ValidationError as err:
    print("Validation error:", err)

This example validates your Python dictionary (obtained from decoded JSON data) against a predefined schema, ensuring that the data conforms to expected formats and types.

Last updated on March 13, 2024

Working with CSV Working with TOML

Python:Working with JSON