Easiest way to serialize an object in a nested dictionary
I would like to serialize all objects having key "manager_objects" in the following dictionary. What's the easiest way to do this?
department {
id: 1,
name: 'ARC',
manager_object: <Object>
sub_department: {
id: 5,
name: 'ABC'
manager_object: <Object>
sub_department: {
id: 7,
name: 'TRW',
manager_object: <Object>
sub_department: {
id: 9,
name: 'MYT',
manager_object: <Object>
sub_deparment: {
id: 12,
name: 'NMY'
manager_object: <Object>
sub_department: {}
}
}
}
}
}
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If your dictionary contains objects that Python / json
doesn't know how to serialize by default, you need to provide json.dump
or a json.dumps
function as a keyword default
that tells it how to serialize those objects, Example:
import json
class Friend(object):
def __init__(self, name, phone_num):
self.name = name
self.phone_num = phone_num
def serialize_friend(obj):
if isinstance(obj, Friend):
serial = obj.name + "-" + str(obj.phone_num)
return serial
else:
raise TypeError ("Type not serializable")
paul = Friend("Paul", 1234567890)
john = Friend("John", 1234567890)
friends_dict = {"paul": paul, "john": john}
print json.dumps(friends_dict, default=serialize_friend)
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You can write your own JsonEncoder (or use the method described by @PaulDapolito). But both methods only work if you know the type of the keyed item manager_object
. From the docs: to use a custom JSONEncoder subclass (for example, which overrides the default () method to serialize additional types), specify it with cls kwarg; otherwise, JSONEncoder is used.
# Example of custom encoder
class CustomJsonEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
def default(self, o):
# Here you can serialize your object depending of its type
# or you can define a method in your class which serializes the object
if isinstance(o, (Employee, Autocar)):
return o.__dict__ # Or another method to serialize it
else:
return json.JSONEncoder.encode(self, o)
# Usage
json.dumps(items, cls=CustomJsonEncoder)
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