February 9, 2018

Converting a list of lists to json in Python

By Mohammed Abualrob Code Snippets 1 Comment

Introduction

JSON (Java Script Object Notation) is one of the most popular text formats on the web due to its simplicity, lightweight and adoption. It is used to structure data exchange between web services. You may check the following article for implementing a simple web service using Python. JSON is a subset of the JavaScript language syntax.

JSON format has the following rules…

Data is represented in name value pairs separated by commas
Objects are held in curly braces
Arrays are held in square brackets

Here is an example

{  
    "cars": [  
       {  
          "id":"01",  
          "model": "Honda",  
          "color": "White"  
       },  
       {  
          "id":"02",  
          "model": "Ford",  
          "color": "Black"  
       }  
    ]  
 }

{

"cars": [

{

"id":"01",

"model": "Honda",

"color": "White"

{

"id":"02",

"model": "Ford",

"color": "Black"

}

]

}

The JSON file above contains information about two cars. Each car object has three fields. It resembles a database table. Car objects are the rows and fields are the columns. Let us now demonstrate how to convert a list of lists in Python to JSON format…

Example

To convert a Python list (or list of lists) to Python string, we use the function json.dumps. Take a look at the follow code snippet…

# Import the json module
import json

# Define a list of lists
A = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

# B is going to be the json 
# representation of A in string format
B = json.dumps(A)
# If you want to convert the json string 
# back to list use json.loads()
C = json.loads(B)

# Print A, B and C to see how they look
print(A)
print(B)
print(C)

# Print their types
print(type(A))
print(type(B))
print(type(C))

# Import the json module

import json

# Define a list of lists

A = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

# B is going to be the json

# representation of A in string format

B = json.dumps(A)

# If you want to convert the json string

# back to list use json.loads()

C = json.loads(B)

# Print A, B and C to see how they look

print(A)

print(B)

print(C)

# Print their types

print(type(A))

print(type(B))

print(type(C))

If you run the code snippet above, you should get the following output…

[[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]
[[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]
[[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]
<type 'list'>
<type 'str'>
<type 'list'>

[[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

Write read json from to file

Now, if we want to save the converted list to file, we should be able to do so by opening a file for writing and use the json.dumps() function. Let us take a look…

# Import the json module
import json

# Define a list of lists
A = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

# Open the file for writing
with open('list.json', 'w') as F:
    # Use the json dumps method to write the list to disk
    F.write(json.dumps(A))

# To load the list back from disk
# Open the file for reading
with open('list.json', 'r') as F:
    B = json.loads(F.read())

# Print the loaded list to see if it looks the same
print(A)
print(B)

# Close the file
F.close()

# Import the json module

import json

# Define a list of lists

A = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

# Open the file for writing

with open('list.json', 'w') as F:

# Use the json dumps method to write the list to disk

F.write(json.dumps(A))

# To load the list back from disk

# Open the file for reading

with open('list.json', 'r') as F:

B = json.loads(F.read())

# Print the loaded list to see if it looks the same

print(A)

print(B)

# Close the file

F.close()

If you run the code snippet above, you should get the following output…

[[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]
[[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

1 2	[[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]] [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

That is all, thanks for reading. Please use the comments section below for questions.

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Converting a list of lists to json in Python

Introduction

Example

Write read json from to file

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