Python JSON – Read a JSON file

Learn to read a JSON file in Python with the help of json.load() method which reads the data into a Python object.

For quick reference, below is the code which reads a JSON file to a Python object.

import json

with open('file_dir_location/data.json') as fp:
  data = json.load(fp)

# The data is of type 'dict'
print(data)

1. json.load() Method

The json.load() deserializes a given JSON file from the filesystem and converts to a python dictionary object using these conversion rules.

2. Python Read JSON File Examples

Example 1: Reading a JSON file from Filesystem

[
    {
        "id": 1,
        "name": "Lokesh",
        "username": "lokesh",
        "email": "lokesh@gmail.com"
    },
    {
        "id": 2,
        "name": "Brian",
        "username": "brian",
        "email": "brian@gmail.com"
    }
]

The users.json contains an array, so when we read the file – we get Python list object.

import json

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

# list
print(type(data))

# Verify read data
print(data)

Program output.

<class 'list'>

[{'id': 1, 'name': 'Lokesh', 'username': 'lokesh', 'email': 'lokesh@gmail.com'}, 
 {'id': 2, 'name': 'Brian', 'username': 'brian', 'email': 'brian@gmail.com'}]

Example 2: Reading a JSON file from URL

We will use the Python Requests library which is a simple, yet elegant HTTP library.

import json
import requests

response = requests.get("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users")
users = json.loads(response.text)

print(users)

Program output has not been printed in this tutorial. Please run the program to see the complete output.

[{'id': 1, 'name': 'Leanne Graham', 'username': 'Bret', 'email': 'Sincere@april.biz'} ... ]

Happy Learning !!