How Can I Serialize Custom Python Classes to JSON?

Serializing Custom Python Classes to JSON

Problem

Python classes cannot natively be serialized to JSON. Consider the following class:

class FileItem:
    def __init__(self, fname):
        self.fname = fname

This class cannot be directly serialized to JSON:

>>> import json
>>> x = FileItem('/foo/bar')
>>> json.dumps(x)
TypeError: Object of type 'FileItem' is not JSON serializable

Solution

To resolve this issue, one approach is to implement a serializer method:

toJSON() Method

import json

class Object:
    def toJSON(self):
        return json.dumps(
            self,
            default=lambda o: o.__dict__, 
            sort_keys=True,
            indent=4)

With this method in place, you can serialize the class:

me = Object()
me.name = "Onur"
me.age = 35
me.dog = Object()
me.dog.name = "Apollo"

print(me.toJSON())

This will output the following JSON:

{
    "age": 35,
    "dog": {
        "name": "Apollo"
    },
    "name": "Onur"
}

Additional Library

For a more comprehensive solution, you can utilize the orjson library.

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