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Saturday, February 1, 2025

Tutorial: load(s) and dump(s) for Json

 

>>> help(json.load)

load(fp, *, cls=None, object_hook=None, parse_float=None, parse_int=None, parse_constant=None, object_pairs_hook=None, **kw)

    Deserialize ``fp`` (a ``.read()``-supporting file-like object containing a JSON document) to a Python object.                

 

help(json.loads)

loads(s, *, cls=None, object_hook=None, parse_float=None, parse_int=None, parse_constant=None, object_pairs_hook=None, **kw)

    Deserialize ``s`` (a ``str``, ``bytes`` or ``bytearray`` instance containing a JSON document) to a Python object.

 


Example using json.load

Assume you have a file named data.json with the following content:

{

  "name": "Alice",

  "age": 25,

  "city": "NY"

}

You can load this JSON data into a Python dictionary as follows:

import json

# Open the JSON file and parse its content

with open('data.json', 'r') as file:

    data = json.load(file)

print(data)

# Output:{'name': 'Alice', 'age': 25, 'city': 'NY'}

 

Example using json.loads

Suppose you have a JSON string:

import json

json_string='{"name":"Bob", "age":30,"city": "NY"}'

# Parse the JSON string into a Python dictionary

data = json.loads(json_string)

print(data)

# Output: {'name': 'Bob', 'age': 30, 'city': 'NY'}

 

Example:

1. Saving a Dictionary to a JSON File

You can use the json.dump function to write a dictionary to a file in JSON format. This method writes the data directly to the file in a structured JSON format, which is easy to read back later using json.load.

 

import json

 

data = {

    "name": "Alice",

    "age": 25,

    "city": "Wonderland"

}

 

# Open a file in write mode and dump the dictionary as JSON

with open('data.json', 'w') as json_file:

    json.dump(data, json_file, indent=4)  # 'indent=4' makes the output nicely formatted

 

 

2. Saving a Dictionary to a Text File as a String

There are two common approaches depending on what string format you need:

 

Method A: Using str()

This method writes the Python dictionary's string representation to the file. Note that this representation is not valid JSON but rather the standard Python dictionary format.

 

data = {

    "name": "Alice",

    "age": 25,

    "city": "Wonderland"

}

 

# Open a text file in write mode and write the dictionary as a string

with open('data.txt', 'w') as text_file:

    text_file.write(str(data))

 

The content of data.txt will look like:

{'name': 'Alice', 'age': 25, 'city': 'Wonderland'}

 

 

Method B: Using json.dumps()

If you prefer to store the dictionary as a JSON-formatted string in a text file (which is both human-readable and can be easily parsed later), you can convert it to a string first with json.dumps and then write it.

import json

data = {

    "name": "Alice",

    "age": 25,

    "city": "Wonderland"

}

 

# Convert the dictionary to a JSON formatted string

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

# Open a text file in write mode and write the JSON string

with open('data.txt', 'w') as text_file:

    text_file.write(json_string)

The resulting data.txt will contain:

 

{

    "name": "Alice",

    "age": 25,

    "city": "Wonderland"

}

Summary

json.dump: Directly writes a dictionary to a file as JSON.

str(): Converts the dictionary to its Python string representation.

json.dumps: Converts the dictionary to a JSON formatted string, which can then be written to a text file.

Choose the method that best fits your needs for later reading or processing the file.

 


 

 

 

 


help me fix: >>> sx

"{'name': 'Bob', 'age': 30, 'city': 'Builderland'}"

>>> sd = json.loads(sx)

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>

  File "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.12_3.12.2288.0_x64__qbz5n2kfra8p0\Lib\json\__init__.py", line 346, in loads

    return _default_decoder.decode(s)

           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  File "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.12_3.12.2288.0_x64__qbz5n2kfra8p0\Lib\json\decoder.py", line 338, in decode

    obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())

               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  File "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.12_3.12.2288.0_x64__qbz5n2kfra8p0\Lib\json\decoder.py", line 354, in raw_decode

    obj, end = self.scan_once(s, idx)

               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting property name enclosed in double quotes: line 1 column 2 (char 1)

 

GPT:

The error occurs because JSON requires double quotes (") for both keys and string values, but your string uses single quotes ('). Here are two ways to fix this:

 

1. Convert the String to Valid JSON

If you can change the string to proper JSON format, use double quotes. For example:

import json

# Valid JSON string with double quotes

sx = '{"name": "Bob", "age": 30, "city": "Builderland"}'

sd = json.loads(sx)

print(sd)

 

2. Use ast.literal_eval for a Python Literal

If you have a string in Python's dictionary format (using single quotes) and you want to convert it into a dictionary, you can use the ast.literal_eval function:

import ast

sx = "{'name': 'Bob', 'age': 30, 'city': 'Builderland'}"

sd = ast.literal_eval(sx) # sd is a dict

print(sd)

This will also output:

#{'name': 'Bob', 'age': 30, 'city': 'Builderland'}

 

str(sd) == sx # return True

 

 

Please comment the following two strings from the perspetive of JSON read and write. which one is preferred?

string1='{"name":"Bob", "age":30,"city": "NY"}'  

string2="{'name': 'Bob', 'age': 30, 'city': 'NY'}"

 

Answer: string1 is preferred and valid JSON format.

 

Best Practice:

Always use json.dumps() to generate JSON strings from Python dictionaries, as it will ensure the proper formatting (i.e., using double quotes).