In this article, we will learn how to work with JSON data in Python. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation, and it is a popular text-based data format. Even though JSON was derived from JS, it has been language-independent for quite some time now. Therefore, it can be used by any programming language. It is used to store and exchange data. For example, when the data is fetched from an API or used in some document database, it is mostly in JSON format. Let&rsquo;s take an example.&nbsp;
<pre class="language-python"><code>{

"name":"Ashton",

"age":15,

"grade":8,

"subjects":["math", "english", "science"],

}</code></pre>
&nbsp;
As you can see, the above data is very readable and looks a lot like a Python dictionary. A data item consists of a key/ value pair containing a colon (:) in between them. Moreover, two data items are separated by a comma (,).&nbsp;
With the intro out of the way, let&rsquo;s get started and see how to handle JSON data in Python.
Python has native support for JSON and provides a built-in module JSON for that purpose. Add the following line at the top of your code to start working with JSON.
<pre class="language-python"><code>import json</code></pre>
&nbsp;
First, let&rsquo;s look at how to perform serialization, i.e., encoding JSON data.
&nbsp;
Encoding JSON data (Python to JSON)
Writing JSON to a file
The JSON module provides the dump() method to write JSON data to a file. It takes two required arguments, a Python object to be encoded and a file-like instance. Consider the following example.
<pre class="language-python"><code>import json

student_data = {

 "name":"Ashton",

 "age": 15,

 "grade": 8,

 "subjects": ["math", "english", "science"]

}


f = open("output.json", 'w')

json.dump(student_data, f)</code></pre>
&nbsp;
Output
{"name":"Ashton", "age":15, "grade": 8, "subject":["math","english","science"]
&nbsp;
As you can see in the above example, we have a Python dictionary containing student&rsquo;s information such as name, age, grade, and subjects. We open the output.json file in the write mode and dump the student_data object to a JSON file.
Consider the following table that shows the conversion of Python objects to JSON.
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 925px; height: 207px;" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">Python</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">JSON</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">dict</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">object</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">int</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">float number</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">str</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">string</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">list</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">tuple array</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">True</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">True</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">False</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">False</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 25px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">None</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">None</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
&nbsp;
You can also write JSON data in a prettier format using some arguments. For example, the indent argument can take a non-negative integer or a string to specify the indentation value. If you pass 0, a negative value, or an empty string, dump() will only insert newlines. Moreover, setting None (the default value) results in the most compact representation. You can also sort the data by keys by passing True to the sort_keys argument. By default, it is False. Let&rsquo;s take an example.
<pre class="language-python"><code>import json

student_data = {

 "name":"Ashton",

 "age": 15,

 "grade": 8,

 "subjects": ["math", "english", "science"]

}



f = open("output.json", 'w')

json.dump(student_data, f, indent=2, sort_keys=True)</code></pre>
&nbsp;
Output
{
&nbsp; &nbsp; "age": 15,
&nbsp; &nbsp; "grade": 8,
&nbsp; &nbsp; "name": "Ashton",
&nbsp; &nbsp; "subjects": " [
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; "math",
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; "english",
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; "science",
&nbsp; &nbsp; ]
}
As you can see in the above output, it is cleaner and more human-readable.
&nbsp;
Convert a Python Object to a JSON String
To convert a serialized object (such as a dictionary) to a JSON string, you can use the dumps() method. It is similar to dump(), except it does not require a file object, and it returns a string containing the information in JSON format. Let&rsquo;s see.
<pre class="language-python"><code>import json

student_data = {

 "name":"Ashton",

 "age": 15,

 "grade": 8,

 "subjects": ["math", "english", "science"]

}



json_string = json.dumps(student_data, indent=2, sort_keys=True)

print(json_string)

print(type(json_string))</code></pre>
&nbsp;
Output
{
&nbsp; "age": 15,
&nbsp; "grade": 8,
&nbsp; "name": "Ashton",
&nbsp; "subjects": [
&nbsp; &nbsp; "math",
&nbsp; &nbsp; "english",
&nbsp; &nbsp; "science"
&nbsp; ]
}
&lt;class 'str'&gt;
&nbsp;
Let&rsquo;s now go ahead and see how to perform deserialization, i.e., decoding JSON data.
Decoding JSON data (JSON to Python)
Parse a JSON File
The JSON module provides the load() method to load JSON from a file to a Python object. It takes a file-like object as its required argument. Consider the following example.
<pre class="language-python"><code>import json 

f = open('sample.json', 'r')

data = json.load(f)

print(data)

print(type(data))</code></pre>
Output
{'name': 'Ashton', 'age': 15, 'grade': 8, 'address': None, subjects': ['math', 'english', 'science']}
&lt;class 'dict'&gt;
&nbsp;
The conversion rules from JSON to Python are given in the table below.
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 925px; height: 233px;" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">JSON</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">Python</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">object</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">dict</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">integer number</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">int</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">real number</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">float</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">string</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">str</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">array</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">list</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">True</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">True</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 25px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">False</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 25px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">False</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 26px;">
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">None</td>
<td style="width: 459px; height: 26px;"><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 20px;">None</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
&nbsp;
Parse a JSON String to an Object
Similarly, you can use the loads() method to convert a JSON string to a Python object. It takes the string containing a JSON document as its required argument. Let&rsquo;s see.
<pre class="language-python"><code>import json

json_str = '''{ 

 "name":"Ashton",

 "age":15,

 "grade":8,

 "address":None,

 "subjects":["math", "english", "science"]

}'''

data_parsed = json.loads(json_str)

print(data)

print(type(data))</code></pre>
&nbsp;
Output
{'name': 'Ashton', 'age': 15, 'grade': 8, 'address': None, 'subjects':
['math', 'english', 'science']}
&lt;class 'dict'&gt;
&nbsp;
Here, the json_str variable contains a JSON document in a multiline string. It gets parsed into a dictionary using the loads() method.
One more thing to note here is that if the Python object is serialized and then deserialized, it may necessarily not be equal to the original one. Consider the following example.
<pre class="language-python"><code>import json

student_data = {

 "name":"Ashton",

 "age": 15,

 "grade": 8,

 "subjects": ("math", "english", "science")

}



json_string = json.dumps(student_data, indent=2, sort_keys=True)

parsed_data = json.loads(json_string)

print(student_data==parsed_data)

</code></pre>
Output
False
&nbsp;
In the above example, student_data contains key subjects whose value is of the type tuple. When student_data gets serialized to a JSON string, subjects&rsquo; value gets converted to an array according to the conversion rule. When we perform decoding, it gets transformed to a list and not to a tuple. Therefore, the original data and the decoded one are not equal.&nbsp;

How to work with JSON Data in Python

In this article, we will learn how to work with JSON data in Python. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation, and it is a popular text-based data f