How to JSON Serialize Sets

How to JSON serialize sets?

JSON notation has only a handful of native datatypes (objects, arrays, strings, numbers, booleans, and null), so anything serialized in JSON needs to be expressed as one of these types.

As shown in the json module docs, this conversion can be done automatically by a JSONEncoder and JSONDecoder, but then you would be giving up some other structure you might need (if you convert sets to a list, then you lose the ability to recover regular lists; if you convert sets to a dictionary using dict.fromkeys(s) then you lose the ability to recover dictionaries).

A more sophisticated solution is to build-out a custom type that can coexist with other native JSON types. This lets you store nested structures that include lists, sets, dicts, decimals, datetime objects, etc.:

from json import dumps, loads, JSONEncoder, JSONDecoder
import pickle

class PythonObjectEncoder(JSONEncoder):
    def default(self, obj):
        try:
            return {'_python_object': pickle.dumps(obj).decode('latin-1')}
        except pickle.PickleError:
            return super().default(obj)

def as_python_object(dct):
    if '_python_object' in dct:
        return pickle.loads(dct['_python_object'].encode('latin-1'))
    return dct

Here is a sample session showing that it can handle lists, dicts, and sets:

>>> data = [1,2,3, set(['knights', 'who', 'say', 'ni']), {'key':'value'}, Decimal('3.14')]

>>> j = dumps(data, cls=PythonObjectEncoder)

>>> loads(j, object_hook=as_python_object)
[1, 2, 3, set(['knights', 'say', 'who', 'ni']), {'key': 'value'}, Decimal('3.14')]

Alternatively, it may be useful to use a more general purpose serialization technique such as YAML, Twisted Jelly, or Python's pickle module. These each support a much greater range of datatypes.

set object is not JSON serializable

Turn sets into lists before serializing, or use a custom default handler to do so:

def set_default(obj):
    if isinstance(obj, set):
        return list(obj)
    raise TypeError

result = json.dumps(yourdata, default=set_default)

How to make a class JSON serializable

Do you have an idea about the expected output? For example, 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 example:

>>> 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>
>>> 

How to serialize SqlAlchemy result to JSON?

A flat implementation

You could use something like this:

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import DeclarativeMeta

class AlchemyEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):

    def default(self, obj):
        if isinstance(obj.__class__, DeclarativeMeta):
            # an SQLAlchemy class
            fields = {}
            for field in [x for x in dir(obj) if not x.startswith('_') and x != 'metadata']:
                data = obj.__getattribute__(field)
                try:
                    json.dumps(data) # this will fail on non-encodable values, like other classes
                    fields[field] = data
                except TypeError:
                    fields[field] = None
            # a json-encodable dict
            return fields

        return json.JSONEncoder.default(self, obj)

and then convert to JSON using:

c = YourAlchemyClass()
print json.dumps(c, cls=AlchemyEncoder)

It will ignore fields that are not encodable (set them to 'None').

It doesn't auto-expand relations (since this could lead to self-references, and loop forever).

A recursive, non-circular implementation

If, however, you'd rather loop forever, you could use:

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import DeclarativeMeta

def new_alchemy_encoder():
    _visited_objs = []

    class AlchemyEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
        def default(self, obj):
            if isinstance(obj.__class__, DeclarativeMeta):
                # don't re-visit self
                if obj in _visited_objs:
                    return None
                _visited_objs.append(obj)

                # an SQLAlchemy class
                fields = {}
                for field in [x for x in dir(obj) if not x.startswith('_') and x != 'metadata']:
                    fields[field] = obj.__getattribute__(field)
                # a json-encodable dict
                return fields

            return json.JSONEncoder.default(self, obj)

    return AlchemyEncoder

And then encode objects using:

print json.dumps(e, cls=new_alchemy_encoder(), check_circular=False)

This would encode all children, and all their children, and all their children... Potentially encode your entire database, basically. When it reaches something its encoded before, it will encode it as 'None'.

A recursive, possibly-circular, selective implementation

Another alternative, probably better, is to be able to specify the fields you want to expand:

def new_alchemy_encoder(revisit_self = False, fields_to_expand = []):
    _visited_objs = []

    class AlchemyEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
        def default(self, obj):
            if isinstance(obj.__class__, DeclarativeMeta):
                # don't re-visit self
                if revisit_self:
                    if obj in _visited_objs:
                        return None
                    _visited_objs.append(obj)

                # go through each field in this SQLalchemy class
                fields = {}
                for field in [x for x in dir(obj) if not x.startswith('_') and x != 'metadata']:
                    val = obj.__getattribute__(field)

                    # is this field another SQLalchemy object, or a list of SQLalchemy objects?
                    if isinstance(val.__class__, DeclarativeMeta) or (isinstance(val, list) and len(val) > 0 and isinstance(val[0].__class__, DeclarativeMeta)):
                        # unless we're expanding this field, stop here
                        if field not in fields_to_expand:
                            # not expanding this field: set it to None and continue
                            fields[field] = None
                            continue

                    fields[field] = val
                # a json-encodable dict
                return fields

            return json.JSONEncoder.default(self, obj)

    return AlchemyEncoder

You can now call it with:

print json.dumps(e, cls=new_alchemy_encoder(False, ['parents']), check_circular=False)

To only expand SQLAlchemy fields called 'parents', for example.

How to JSONL serialize sets in YAML style?

The "YAML printed in one line" format similar to JSONL is called "inline syntax" and is achievable with default_flow_style=True, however, this is very badly documented. The result is not JSON, but still standard compliant and does not require custom encoder/decoder.

See the example:

from yaml import dump, load
data = [1, 2, 3, {'say', 'knights', 'ni', 'who'}, {'key': 'value'}, 3.14]
data_dumped = dump(data, default_flow_style=True)
print(data_dumped)
[1, 2, 3, !!set {knights: null, ni: null, say: null, who: null}, {"key": "value"}, 3.14]
data_loaded = load(data_dumped)
assert data == data_loaded

How to JSON serialize sets?

JSON notation has only a handful of native datatypes (objects, arrays, strings, numbers, booleans, and null), so anything serialized in JSON needs to be expressed as one of these types.

As shown in the json module docs, this conversion can be done automatically by a JSONEncoder and JSONDecoder, but then you would be giving up some other structure you might need (if you convert sets to a list, then you lose the ability to recover regular lists; if you convert sets to a dictionary using dict.fromkeys(s) then you lose the ability to recover dictionaries).

A more sophisticated solution is to build-out a custom type that can coexist with other native JSON types. This lets you store nested structures that include lists, sets, dicts, decimals, datetime objects, etc.:

from json import dumps, loads, JSONEncoder, JSONDecoder
import pickle

class PythonObjectEncoder(JSONEncoder):
    def default(self, obj):
        try:
            return {'_python_object': pickle.dumps(obj).decode('latin-1')}
        except pickle.PickleError:
            return super().default(obj)

def as_python_object(dct):
    if '_python_object' in dct:
        return pickle.loads(dct['_python_object'].encode('latin-1'))
    return dct

Here is a sample session showing that it can handle lists, dicts, and sets:

>>> data = [1,2,3, set(['knights', 'who', 'say', 'ni']), {'key':'value'}, Decimal('3.14')]

>>> j = dumps(data, cls=PythonObjectEncoder)

>>> loads(j, object_hook=as_python_object)
[1, 2, 3, set(['knights', 'say', 'who', 'ni']), {'key': 'value'}, Decimal('3.14')]

Alternatively, it may be useful to use a more general purpose serialization technique such as YAML, Twisted Jelly, or Python's pickle module. These each support a much greater range of datatypes.

solidity TypeError: Object of type set is not JSON serializable

Instead of this:

{"abi", "metadata", "evm.bytecode", "evm.bytecode.sourceMap"}

you should use this:

["abi", "metadata", "evm.bytecode", "evm.bytecode.sourceMap"]

Sets in Python aren't JSON serializable.

Python json.dumps TypeError: Object of type 'set' is not JSON serializable , when trying convert from variable , working when hardcoded

Your problem is that your code doesn't do what you expect it to do.
the curly brackets in Python are used for both dict and set objects.

if you are using them like that:

{'message': 'Hello World'}

an object of type dict is created.

However, if you use them like that:

{'Hello World'}

an object of type set is created.

Your pro variable, is a single str variable, therefore, doing the following:

pro_ = {"'message': 'no verstion found'"}

would create a set with one value only - your string.

---

If you would like to serialize that set into the json, you can do it with list(_pro) but that wouldn't really make any sense, as it will also contain your quotation marks.

Serializing class instance to JSON

The basic problem is that the JSON encoder json.dumps() only knows how to serialize a limited set of object types by default, all built-in types. List here: https://docs.python.org/3.3/library/json.html#encoders-and-decoders

One good solution would be to make your class inherit from JSONEncoder and then implement the JSONEncoder.default() function, and make that function emit the correct JSON for your class.

A simple solution would be to call json.dumps() on the .__dict__ member of that instance. That is a standard Python dict and if your class is simple it will be JSON serializable.

class Foo(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.x = 1
        self.y = 2

foo = Foo()
s = json.dumps(foo) # raises TypeError with "is not JSON serializable"

s = json.dumps(foo.__dict__) # s set to: {"x":1, "y":2}

The above approach is discussed in this blog posting:

    Serializing arbitrary Python objects to JSON using _dict_

And, of course, Python offers a built-in function that accesses .__dict__ for you, called vars().

So the above example can also be done as:

s = json.dumps(vars(foo)) # s set to: {"x":1, "y":2}

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