Issue parsing multiline JSON file using Python
Solution 1
You will go crazy if you try to parse a json file line by line. The json module has helper methods to read file objects directly or strings i.e. the load
and loads
methods. load
takes a file object (as shown below) for a file that contains json data, while loads
takes a string that contains json data.
Option 1: - Preferred
import json
with open('test.json', 'r') as jf:
weatherData = json.load(jf)
print weatherData
Option 2:
import json
with open('test.json', 'r') as jf:
weatherData = json.loads(jf.read())
print weatherData
If you are looking for higher performance json parsing check out ujson
Solution 2
In the first snippet, you try to parse it line by line. You should parse it all at once. The easiest is to use json.load(jsonfile)
. (The jf variable name is misleading as it's a string). So the correct way to parse it:
import json
with open('test.json', 'r') as jsonFile:
weatherData = json.loads(jsonFile)
Although it's a good idea to store the json in one line, as it's more concise.
In the second snippet your problem is that you print it as unicode string which is and u'string here'
is python specific. A valid json uses double quotation marks
Solution 3
FYI, you can have both files opened in single with
statement:
with open('file_A') as in_, open('file_B', 'w+') as out_:
# logic here
...
hypersonics
Updated on June 08, 2022Comments
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hypersonics almost 2 years
I am trying to parse a JSON multiline file using
json
library in Python 2.7. A simplified sample file is given below:{ "observations": { "notice": [ { "copyright": "Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 2015, Bureau of Meteorology. For more information see: http://www.bom.gov.au/other/copyright.shtml http://www.bom.gov.au/other/disclaimer.shtml", "copyright_url": "http://www.bom.gov.au/other/copyright.shtml", "disclaimer_url": "http://www.bom.gov.au/other/disclaimer.shtml", "feedback_url": "http://www.bom.gov.au/other/feedback" } ] } }
My code is as follows:
import json with open('test.json', 'r') as jsonFile: for jf in jsonFile: jf = jf.replace('\n', '') jf = jf.strip() weatherData = json.loads(jf) print weatherData
Nevertheless, I get an error as shown below:
Traceback (most recent call last): File "test.py", line 8, in <module> weatherData = json.loads(jf) File "/home/usr/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/json/__init__.py", line 339, in loads return _default_decoder.decode(s) File "/home/usr/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/json/decoder.py", line 364, in decode obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end()) File "/home/usr/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/json/decoder.py", line 380, in raw_decode obj, end = self.scan_once(s, idx) ValueError: Expecting object: line 1 column 1 (char 0)
Just to do some testing, I modified the code such that after removing newlines and striping away the leading and trailing white spaces, I write the contents to another file (with the
json
extension). Surprisingly, when I read back the latter file, I do not get any error and the parsing is successful. The modified code is as follows:import json filewrite = open('out.json', 'w+') with open('test.json', 'r') as jsonFile: for jf in jsonFile: jf = jf.replace('\n', '') jf = jf.strip() filewrite.write(jf) filewrite.close() with open('out.json', 'r') as newJsonFile: for line in newJsonFile: weatherData = json.loads(line) print weatherData
The output is as follows:
{u'observations': {u'notice': [{u'copyright_url': u'http://www.bom.gov.au/other/copyright.shtml', u'disclaimer_url': u'http://www.bom.gov.au/other/disclaimer.shtml', u'copyright': u'Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 2015, Bureau of Meteorology. For more information see: http://www.bom.gov.au/other/copyright.shtml http://www.bom.gov.au/other/disclaimer.shtml', u'feedback_url': u'http://www.bom.gov.au/other/feedback'}]}}
Any idea what might be going on when new lines and white spaces are stripped before using
json
library? -
hypersonics over 8 yearsI tried your approach of loading the entire file and parsing all at once, but It fails. By the way, I have tried parsing json files earlier line by line without having any issues, expect that each dictionary never exceeded about a 100 characters long.
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fodma1 over 8 yearsFor my it was working fine with the json you provided. Try using the Sublime JSON plugin for converting the json back and forth: github.com/dzhibas/SublimePrettyJson It also validates the json, so you can investigate the issue further. For more detailed linting try jsonlint.com
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Hamid Pourjam over 8 yearsWhile this code may answer the question, it is better to explain what it does and add some references to it.
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President James K. Polk over 8 yearsThis does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review
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Vlad Nikiporoff over 8 years@James: agreed. at the moment of answering I was not able to comment on questions and thanks to upvote now I can :-)
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hypersonics over 8 yearsThank you @OkezieE. Loading the entire file via
load
does the trick.