What is the difference between json.dumps and json.loads?

This post is about the difference between json.dumps and json.loads.

JSON.DUMPS - takes an json object and produces a string.

Python Script

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

import json my_dictionary = { "key 1": "Value 1", "key 2": "Value 2", "decimal": 100, "boolean": False, "list": [1, 2, 3], "dict": { "child key 1": "value 1", "child key 2": "value 2" } } # accessing the content in the my_dictionary object print("**Object**") print(my_dictionary["key 1"]) print(my_dictionary["list"]) print(my_dictionary["dict"]) li = my_dictionary["list"] print(li[0]) dic = my_dictionary["dict"] print(dic["child key 1"]) print("") # dumps takes an object and produces a string print("**String**") print(json.dumps(my_dictionary, indent=4)) print("") jd = json.dumps(my_dictionary) print(jd[0]) print(jd[1]) print(jd[2])

Result

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JSON.LOADS takes a file-like object, reads the data from that object, and use that string to create a json object.

Python Script

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

import json # json_data is a string object json_data = """ { "key 1": "value 1", "key 2": "value 2", "decimal": 10, "boolean": true, "list": [1, 2, 3], "dictionary": { "child key 1": "child value 1", "child key 2": "child value 2" } }""" print(json_data) print(json_data[8]) print(json_data[9]) print(json_data[10]) print(json_data[11]) print(json_data[12]) print("") print("Convert the string object to JSON object using json.loads") my_dict = json.loads(json_data) print("string value: %s" % my_dict["key 1"]) print("decimal value: %d" % my_dict["decimal"]) print("decimal value: %r" % my_dict["boolean"]) print("list values: %s" % my_dict["list"]) print("dictionary: %s" % my_dict["dictionary"]["child key 2"])

Result

Reference:

What is the difference between json.dumps and json.load?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32911336/what-is-the-difference-between-json-dumps-and-json-load

Python dictionaries and JSON (crash course)
https://codingnetworker.com/2015/10/python-dictionaries-json-crash-course/