Storing Python dictionaries

Question

I'm used to bringing data in and out of Python using .csv files, but there are obvious challenges to this. Any advice on simple ways to store a dictionary (or sets of dictionaries) in a json or pck file? For example:

data = {}
data ['key1'] = "keyinfo"
data ['key2'] = "keyinfo2"

I would like to know both how to save this, and then how to load it back in.

Answer 1

This is an old topic, but for completeness, we should include ConfigParser and configparser which are part of the standard library in Python 2 and 3, respectively. This module reads and writes to a config/ini file and (at least in Python 3) behaves in a lot of ways like a dictionary. It has the added benefit that you can store multiple dictionaries into separate sections of your config/ini file and recall them. Sweet!

Python 2.7.x example.

import ConfigParser

config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()

dict1 = {'key1':'keyinfo', 'key2':'keyinfo2'}
dict2 = {'k1':'hot', 'k2':'cross', 'k3':'buns'}
dict3 = {'x':1, 'y':2, 'z':3}

# make each dictionary a separate section in config
config.add_section('dict1')
for key in dict1.keys():
    config.set('dict1', key, dict1[key])

config.add_section('dict2')
for key in dict2.keys():
    config.set('dict2', key, dict2[key])

config.add_section('dict3')
for key in dict3.keys():
    config.set('dict3', key, dict3[key])

# save config to file
f = open('config.ini', 'w')
config.write(f)
f.close()

# read config from file
config2 = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
config2.read('config.ini')

dictA = {}
for item in config2.items('dict1'):
    dictA[item[0]] = item[1]

dictB = {}
for item in config2.items('dict2'):
    dictB[item[0]] = item[1]

dictC = {}
for item in config2.items('dict3'):
    dictC[item[0]] = item[1]

print(dictA)
print(dictB)
print(dictC)

Python 3.X example.

import configparser

config = configparser.ConfigParser()

dict1 = {'key1':'keyinfo', 'key2':'keyinfo2'}
dict2 = {'k1':'hot', 'k2':'cross', 'k3':'buns'}
dict3 = {'x':1, 'y':2, 'z':3}

# make each dictionary a separate section in config
config['dict1'] = dict1
config['dict2'] = dict2
config['dict3'] = dict3

# save config to file
f = open('config.ini', 'w')
config.write(f)
f.close()

# read config from file
config2 = configparser.ConfigParser()
config2.read('config.ini')

# ConfigParser objects are a lot like dictionaries, but if you really
# want a dictionary you can ask it to convert a section to a dictionary
dictA = dict(config2['dict1'] )
dictB = dict(config2['dict2'] )
dictC = dict(config2['dict3'])

print(dictA)
print(dictB)
print(dictC)

console output

{'key2': 'keyinfo2', 'key1': 'keyinfo'}
{'k1': 'hot', 'k2': 'cross', 'k3': 'buns'}
{'z': '3', 'y': '2', 'x': '1'}

contents of config.ini

[dict1]
key2 = keyinfo2
key1 = keyinfo

[dict2]
k1 = hot
k2 = cross
k3 = buns

[dict3]
z = 3
y = 2
x = 1

Answer 2

If save to a json file, the best and easiest way of doing this is:

import json
with open("file.json", "wb") as f:
    f.write(json.dumps(dict).encode("utf-8"))

Answer 3

Minimal example, writing directly to a file:

import json
json.dump(data, open(filename, 'wb'))
data = json.load(open(filename))

or safely opening / closing:

import json
with open(filename, 'wb') as outfile:
    json.dump(data, outfile)
with open(filename) as infile:
    data = json.load(infile)

If you want to save it in a string instead of a file:

import json
json_str = json.dumps(data)
data = json.loads(json_str)

Answer 4

Pickle save:

try:
    import cPickle as pickle
except ImportError:  # python 3.x
    import pickle

with open('data.p', 'wb') as fp:
    pickle.dump(data, fp, protocol=pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)

See the pickle module documentation for additional information regarding the protocol argument.

Pickle load:

with open('data.p', 'rb') as fp:
    data = pickle.load(fp)

---

JSON save:

import json

with open('data.json', 'w') as fp:
    json.dump(data, fp)

Supply extra arguments like sort_keys or indent to get a pretty result. The argument sort_keys will sort the keys alphabetically and indent will indent your data structure with indent=N spaces.

json.dump(data, fp, sort_keys=True, indent=4)

JSON load:

with open('data.json', 'r') as fp:
    data = json.load(fp)

Answer 5

If you want an alternative to pickle or json, you can use klepto.

>>> init = {'y': 2, 'x': 1, 'z': 3}
>>> import klepto
>>> cache = klepto.archives.file_archive('memo', init, serialized=False)
>>> cache        
{'y': 2, 'x': 1, 'z': 3}
>>>
>>> # dump dictionary to the file 'memo.py'
>>> cache.dump() 
>>> 
>>> # import from 'memo.py'
>>> from memo import memo
>>> print memo
{'y': 2, 'x': 1, 'z': 3}

With klepto, if you had used serialized=True, the dictionary would have been written to memo.pkl as a pickled dictionary instead of with clear text.

You can get klepto here: https://github.com/uqfoundation/klepto

dill is probably a better choice for pickling then pickle itself, as dill can serialize almost anything in python. klepto also can use dill.

You can get dill here: https://github.com/uqfoundation/dill

The additional mumbo-jumbo on the first few lines are because klepto can be configured to store dictionaries to a file, to a directory context, or to a SQL database. The API is the same for whatever you choose as the backend archive. It gives you an "archivable" dictionary with which you can use load and dump to interact with the archive.

Answer 6

Also see the speeded-up package ujson. https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ujson

import ujson
with open('data.json', 'wb') as fp:
    ujson.dump(data, fp)