json — JSON encoder and decoder

New in version 2.6.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) <http://json.org> is a subset of JavaScript syntax (ECMA-262 3rd edition) used as a lightweight data interchange format.

json exposes an API familiar to users of the standard library marshal and pickle modules.

Encoding basic Python object hierarchies:

>>> import json
>>> json.dumps(['foo', {'bar': ('baz', None, 1.0, 2)}])
'["foo", {"bar": ["baz", null, 1.0, 2]}]'
>>> print json.dumps("\"foo\bar")
"\"foo\bar"
>>> print json.dumps(u'\u1234')
"\u1234"
>>> print json.dumps('\\')
"\\"
>>> print json.dumps({"c": 0, "b": 0, "a": 0}, sort_keys=True)
{"a": 0, "b": 0, "c": 0}
>>> from StringIO import StringIO
>>> io = StringIO()
>>> json.dump(['streaming API'], io)
>>> io.getvalue()
'["streaming API"]'

Compact encoding:

>>> import json
>>> json.dumps([1,2,3,{'4': 5, '6': 7}], separators=(',',':'))
'[1,2,3,{"4":5,"6":7}]'

Pretty printing:

>>> import json
>>> print json.dumps({'4': 5, '6': 7}, sort_keys=True, indent=4)
{
    "4": 5,
    "6": 7
}

Decoding JSON:

>>> import json
>>> json.loads('["foo", {"bar":["baz", null, 1.0, 2]}]')
[u'foo', {u'bar': [u'baz', None, 1.0, 2]}]
>>> json.loads('"\\"foo\\bar"')
u'"foo\x08ar'
>>> from StringIO import StringIO
>>> io = StringIO('["streaming API"]')
>>> json.load(io)
[u'streaming API']

Specializing JSON object decoding:

>>> import json
>>> def as_complex(dct):
...     if '__complex__' in dct:
...         return complex(dct['real'], dct['imag'])
...     return dct
...
>>> json.loads('{"__complex__": true, "real": 1, "imag": 2}',
...     object_hook=as_complex)
(1+2j)
>>> import decimal
>>> json.loads('1.1', parse_float=decimal.Decimal)
Decimal('1.1')

Extending JSONEncoder:

>>> import json
>>> class ComplexEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
...     def default(self, obj):
...         if isinstance(obj, complex):
...             return [obj.real, obj.imag]
...         return json.JSONEncoder.default(self, obj)
...
>>> dumps(2 + 1j, cls=ComplexEncoder)
'[2.0, 1.0]'
>>> ComplexEncoder().encode(2 + 1j)
'[2.0, 1.0]'
>>> list(ComplexEncoder().iterencode(2 + 1j))
['[', '2.0', ', ', '1.0', ']']

Using json.tool from the shell to validate and pretty-print:

$ echo '{"json":"obj"}' | python -mjson.tool
{
    "json": "obj"
}
$ echo '{ 1.2:3.4}' | python -mjson.tool
Expecting property name: line 1 column 2 (char 2)

Note

The JSON produced by this module’s default settings is a subset of YAML, so it may be used as a serializer for that as well.

Basic Usage

json.dump(obj, fp[, skipkeys[, ensure_ascii[, check_circular[, allow_nan[, cls[, indent[, separators[, encoding[, default[, **kw]]]]]]]]]])

Serialize obj as a JSON formatted stream to fp (a .write()-supporting file-like object).

If skipkeys is True (default: False), then dict keys that are not of a basic type (str, unicode, int, long, float, bool, None) will be skipped instead of raising a TypeError.

If ensure_ascii is False (default: True), then some chunks written to fp may be unicode instances, subject to normal Python str to unicode coercion rules. Unless fp.write() explicitly understands unicode (as in codecs.getwriter()) this is likely to cause an error.

If check_circular is False (default: True), then the circular reference check for container types will be skipped and a circular reference will result in an OverflowError (or worse).

If allow_nan is False (default: True), then it will be a ValueError to serialize out of range float values (nan, inf, -inf) in strict compliance of the JSON specification, instead of using the JavaScript equivalents (NaN, Infinity, -Infinity).

If indent is a non-negative integer, then JSON array elements and object members will be pretty-printed with that indent level. An indent level of 0 will only insert newlines. None (the default) selects the most compact representation.

If separators is an (item_separator, dict_separator) tuple, then it will be used instead of the default (', ', ': ') separators. (',', ':') is the most compact JSON representation.

encoding is the character encoding for str instances, default is UTF-8.

default(obj) is a function that should return a serializable version of obj or raise TypeError. The default simply raises TypeError.

To use a custom JSONEncoder` subclass (e.g. one that overrides the default() method to serialize additional types), specify it with the cls kwarg.

json.dumps(obj[, skipkeys[, ensure_ascii[, check_circular[, allow_nan[, cls[, indent[, separators[, encoding[, default[, **kw]]]]]]]]]])

Serialize obj to a JSON formatted str.

If ensure_ascii is False, then the return value will be a unicode instance. The other arguments have the same meaning as in dump().

Encoders and decoders

class json.JSONDecoder([encoding[, object_hook[, parse_float[, parse_int[, parse_constant[, strict]]]]]])

Simple JSON decoder.

Performs the following translations in decoding by default:

JSON	Python
object	dict
array	list
string	unicode
number (int)	int, long
number (real)	float
true	True
false	False
null	None

It also understands NaN, Infinity, and -Infinity as their corresponding float values, which is outside the JSON spec.

encoding determines the encoding used to interpret any str objects decoded by this instance (UTF-8 by default). It has no effect when decoding unicode objects.

Note that currently only encodings that are a superset of ASCII work, strings of other encodings should be passed in as unicode.

object_hook, if specified, will be called with the result of every JSON object decoded and its return value will be used in place of the given dict. This can be used to provide custom deserializations (e.g. to support JSON-RPC class hinting).

parse_float, if specified, will be called with the string of every JSON float to be decoded. By default, this is equivalent to float(num_str). This can be used to use another datatype or parser for JSON floats (e.g. decimal.Decimal).

parse_int, if specified, will be called with the string of every JSON int to be decoded. By default, this is equivalent to int(num_str). This can be used to use another datatype or parser for JSON integers (e.g. float).

parse_constant, if specified, will be called with one of the following strings: '-Infinity', 'Infinity', 'NaN', 'null', 'true', 'false'. This can be used to raise an exception if invalid JSON numbers are encountered.

decode(s)

Return the Python representation of s (a str or unicode instance containing a JSON document)

raw_decode(s)

Decode a JSON document from s (a str or unicode beginning with a JSON document) and return a 2-tuple of the Python representation and the index in s where the document ended.

This can be used to decode a JSON document from a string that may have extraneous data at the end.

class json.JSONEncoder([skipkeys[, ensure_ascii[, check_circular[, allow_nan[, sort_keys[, indent[, separators[, encoding[, default]]]]]]]]])

Extensible JSON encoder for Python data structures.

Supports the following objects and types by default:

Python	JSON
dict	object
list, tuple	array
str, unicode	string
int, long, float	number
True	true
False	false
None	null

To extend this to recognize other objects, subclass and implement a default() method with another method that returns a serializable object for o if possible, otherwise it should call the superclass implementation (to raise TypeError).

If skipkeys is False (the default), then it is a TypeError to attempt encoding of keys that are not str, int, long, float or None. If skipkeys is True, such items are simply skipped.

If ensure_ascii is True (the default), the output is guaranteed to be str objects with all incoming unicode characters escaped. If ensure_ascii is False, the output will be a unicode object.

If check_circular is True (the default), then lists, dicts, and custom encoded objects will be checked for circular references during encoding to prevent an infinite recursion (which would cause an OverflowError). Otherwise, no such check takes place.

If allow_nan is True (the default), then NaN, Infinity, and -Infinity will be encoded as such. This behavior is not JSON specification compliant, but is consistent with most JavaScript based encoders and decoders. Otherwise, it will be a ValueError to encode such floats.

If sort_keys is True (the default), then the output of dictionaries will be sorted by key; this is useful for regression tests to ensure that JSON serializations can be compared on a day-to-day basis.

If indent is a non-negative integer (it is None by default), then JSON array elements and object members will be pretty-printed with that indent level. An indent level of 0 will only insert newlines. None is the most compact representation.

If specified, separators should be an (item_separator, key_separator) tuple. The default is (', ', ': '). To get the most compact JSON representation, you should specify (',', ':') to eliminate whitespace.

If specified, default is a function that gets called for objects that can’t otherwise be serialized. It should return a JSON encodable version of the object or raise a TypeError.

If encoding is not None, then all input strings will be transformed into unicode using that encoding prior to JSON-encoding. The default is UTF-8.

default(o)

Implement this method in a subclass such that it returns a serializable object for o, or calls the base implementation (to raise a TypeError).

For example, to support arbitrary iterators, you could implement default like this:

def default(self, o):
   try:
       iterable = iter(o)
   except TypeError:
       pass
   else:
       return list(iterable)
   return JSONEncoder.default(self, o)

encode(o)

Return a JSON string representation of a Python data structure, o. For example:

>>> JSONEncoder().encode({"foo": ["bar", "baz"]})
'{"foo": ["bar", "baz"]}'

iterencode(o)

Encode the given object, o, and yield each string representation as available. For example:

for chunk in JSONEncoder().iterencode(bigobject):
    mysocket.write(chunk)