How to make a class JSON serializable

Question

How to make a Python class serializable?

A simple class:

class FileItem:
    def __init__(self, fname):
        self.fname = fname

What should I do to be able to get output of:

json.dumps()

Without an error (FileItem instance at ... is not JSON serializable)

Answer 1

I liked Lost Koder's method the most. I ran into issues when trying to serialize more complex objects whos members/methods aren't serializable. Here's my implementation that works on more objects:

class Serializer(object):
    @staticmethod
    def serialize(obj):
        def check(o):
            for k, v in o.__dict__.items():
                try:
                    _ = json.dumps(v)
                    o.__dict__[k] = v
                except TypeError:
                    o.__dict__[k] = str(v)
            return o
        return json.dumps(check(obj).__dict__, indent=2)

Answer 2

I came across this problem the other day and implemented a more general version of an Encoder for Python objects that can handle nested objects and inherited fields:

import json
import inspect

class ObjectEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
    def default(self, obj):
        if hasattr(obj, "to_json"):
            return self.default(obj.to_json())
        elif hasattr(obj, "__dict__"):
            d = dict(
                (key, value)
                for key, value in inspect.getmembers(obj)
                if not key.startswith("__")
                and not inspect.isabstract(value)
                and not inspect.isbuiltin(value)
                and not inspect.isfunction(value)
                and not inspect.isgenerator(value)
                and not inspect.isgeneratorfunction(value)
                and not inspect.ismethod(value)
                and not inspect.ismethoddescriptor(value)
                and not inspect.isroutine(value)
            )
            return self.default(d)
        return obj

Example:

class C(object):
    c = "NO"
    def to_json(self):
        return {"c": "YES"}

class B(object):
    b = "B"
    i = "I"
    def __init__(self, y):
        self.y = y

    def f(self):
        print "f"

class A(B):
    a = "A"
    def __init__(self):
        self.b = [{"ab": B("y")}]
        self.c = C()

print json.dumps(A(), cls=ObjectEncoder, indent=2, sort_keys=True)

Result:

{
  "a": "A", 
  "b": [
    {
      "ab": {
        "b": "B", 
        "i": "I", 
        "y": "y"
      }
    }
  ], 
  "c": {
    "c": "YES"
  }, 
  "i": "I"
}

Answer 3

Do you have an idea about the expected output? For e.g. will this do?

>>> f  = FileItem("/foo/bar")
>>> magic(f)
'{"fname": "/foo/bar"}'

In that case you can merely call json.dumps(f.__dict__).

If you want more customized output then you will have to subclass JSONEncoder and implement your own custom serialization.

For a trivial example, see below.

>>> from json import JSONEncoder
>>> class MyEncoder(JSONEncoder):
        def default(self, o):
            return o.__dict__    

>>> MyEncoder().encode(f)
'{"fname": "/foo/bar"}'

Then you pass this class into the json.dumps() method as cls kwarg:

json.dumps(cls=MyEncoder)

If you also want to decode then you'll have to supply a custom object_hook to the JSONDecoder class. For e.g.

>>> def from_json(json_object):
        if 'fname' in json_object:
            return FileItem(json_object['fname'])
>>> f = JSONDecoder(object_hook = from_json).decode('{"fname": "/foo/bar"}')
>>> f
<__main__.FileItem object at 0x9337fac>
>>> 

Answer 4

I came up with my own solution. Use this method, pass any document (dict,list, ObjectId etc) to serialize.

def getSerializable(doc):
    # check if it's a list
    if isinstance(doc, list):
        for i, val in enumerate(doc):
            doc[i] = getSerializable(doc[i])
        return doc

    # check if it's a dict
    if isinstance(doc, dict):
        for key in doc.keys():
            doc[key] = getSerializable(doc[key])
        return doc

    # Process ObjectId
    if isinstance(doc, ObjectId):
        doc = str(doc)
        return doc

    # Use any other custom serializting stuff here...

    # For the rest of stuff
    return doc

Answer 5

json is limited in terms of objects it can print, and jsonpickle (you may need a pip install jsonpickle) is limited in terms it can't indent text. If you would like to inspect the contents of an objecth whose class you can't change, I still couldn't find a straighter way than:

 import json
 import jsonpickle
 ...
 print  json.dumps(json.loads(jsonpickle.encode(object)), indent=2)

Note that still they can't print the object methods.

Answer 6

If you're using Python3.5+, you could use jsons. It will convert your object (and all its attributes recursively) to a dict.

import jsons

a_dict = jsons.dump(your_object)

Or if you wanted a string:

a_str = jsons.dumps(your_object)

Or if your class implemented jsons.JsonSerializable:

a_dict = your_object.json