linuxbutler

I had to look at a 9-MB json file this weekend. Here’s how I converted it from one-line to indented multi-line:

$ sudo apt-get install python-simplejson
$ dpkg -L python-simplejson
$ less /usr/share/pyshared/simplejson/tests/test_pass1.py

$ python
>>> import simplejson as json
>>> f = open (big.json, 'r')
>>> oneline = f.read ()
>>> f.close
>>> ds = json.loads (oneline)                  # ds = "data structure"
>>> multiline = json.dumps (ds, indent="  ")   # two spaces / indent level
>>> f = open (formatted.json, 'w')
>>> f.write (multiline)
>>> f.close ()
>>> ^D
$ 

In reviewing the steps for this blog post, I note that there is also a “load” function, that might be even easier.

>>> import simplejson as json
>>> dir (json)
['Decimal', 'JSONDecodeError', 'JSONDecoder', 'JSONEncoder',\
 'OrderedDict', '__all__', '__author__', '__builtins__', '__doc__',\
'__file__', '__name__', '__package__', '__path__', '__version__',\
'_default_decoder', '_default_encoder', '_import_OrderedDict',\
'_import_c_make_encoder', '_speedups', '_toggle_speedups',\
'decoder', 'dump', 'dumps', 'encoder', 'load', 'loads', 'ordered_dict',\
'scanner']
>>> 

Example input:

[{'pk': '5', 'model': 'theModel', 'fields': {'two': 'two', 'one': 'one'}}]

Example output:

[
  {
    "pk": "5", 
    "model": "theModel", 
    "fields": {
      "two": "two", 
      "one": "one"
    }
  }
]