Python Read JSON File

To read JSON file in Python, open file in read mode, and parse it using json.loads() function.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to read a JSON file to a string, and access elements of the JSON content.

Examples

1. Read JSON file

In this example, we read data.json file with JSON content. We will load this content into a Python object, so that we can access the elements and key:value pairs.

Following is the data.json file that we are reading in the Python program. The content is a single object with three name:value pairs.

data.json

{
    "a": 21,
    "b": 42,
    "c": 73
}

Python Program

import json

fileObject = open("data.json", "r")
jsonContent = fileObject.read()
aList = json.loads(jsonContent)
print(aList)
print(aList['a'])
print(aList['b'])
print(aList['c'])

Output

{'a': 21, 'b': 42, 'c': 73}
21
42
73

2. Read JSON file that contains array of objects

In this example, we read data.json file with JSON content. The JSON data is an array of objects.

data.json

[
    {
        "a": 85,
        "b": 71,
        "c": 39
    },
    {
        "d": 18,
        "e": 72,
        "f": 23
    },
    {
        "g": 18,
        "h": 62,
        "i": 43
    }
]

Python Program

import json

fileObject = open("data.json", "r")
jsonContent = fileObject.read()
aList = json.loads(jsonContent)
print(aList[0])
print(aList[0]['c'])

Output

{'a': 85, 'b': 71, 'c': 39}
39

Summary

In this Python JSON Tutorial, we learned how to read JSON file in Python and access values from the JSON content.