JSON
Python - A Quick Start for existing Programers
1 min read
This section is 1 min read, full guide is 44 min read
Published Sep 16 2025, updated Aug 17 2026
21
Show sections list
0
Log in to enable the "Like" button
0
Guide comments
0
Log in to enable the "Save" button
Respond to this guide
Guide Sections
Guide Comments
Python
Python has a built in module called json for handling the conversion of json to Python objects and serialising Python objects to json.
It can be imported by:
import jsonConverting between JSON and Python
There are the following methods:
- Serialise (Python → JSON string):
json.dumps(obj)→ Python object → JSON stringjson.dump(obj, file)→ write JSON directly to a file- Deserialise (JSON string → Python):
json.loads(json_string)→ JSON string → Python objectjson.load(file)→ read JSON directly from a file
JSON ↔ Python type mappings:
JSON | Python |
Object | dict |
Array | list |
String | str |
Number | int/float |
true/false | True/False |
null | None |
Formatting options
indent=4→ pretty-print JSON with indentationsort_keys=True→ sort dictionary keys in outputseparators=(',', ': ')→ control formatting
Examples:
import json# ----------------------------------------# Python objectdata = { "name": "Alice", "age": 30, "is_admin": True, "skills": ["Python", "Django", "Flask"], "projects": None}# ----------------------------------------# Python -> JSON stringjson_string = json.dumps(data)print("JSON string:", json_string)# Pretty print JSONpretty_json = json.dumps(data, indent=4, sort_keys=True)print("Pretty JSON:\n", pretty_json)# Write JSON to filewith open("data.json", "w") as f: json.dump(data, f, indent=2)# ----------------------------------------# JSON string -> Pythonparsed = json.loads(json_string)print("Parsed back to Python:", parsed)print("Name:", parsed["name"])# Read JSON from filewith open("data.json", "r") as f: from_file = json.load(f) print("From file:", from_file)# ----------------------------------------# Controlling separators (compact JSON)compact_json = json.dumps(data, separators=(',', ':'))print("Compact JSON:", compact_json)