How can I Python write JSON to file from a dictionary?

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1

How can I Python write JSON to file from a dictionary?

I have JSON data stored in a dictionary and I want to write it to a file.

Here’s my current approach:

f = open('data.json', 'wb')
f.write(data)

However, I get the error:

TypeError: must be string or buffer, not dict

2

Hey Mate,

You can try my method of resolving your query:

Using json.dump(): The json module provides a method called dump() that can directly serialize a dictionary into a JSON formatted string and write it to a file.

import json

data = {"name": "John", "age": 30, "city": "New York"}
with open('data.json', 'w') as f:
    json.dump(data, f)

This approach automatically converts the dictionary into a JSON string and writes it to the file in the correct format.

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

3

You can first convert the dictionary into a JSON string using json.dumps() and then write that string to a file manually.

import json

data = {"name": "John", "age": 30, "city": "New York"}
json_data = json.dumps(data)
with open('data.json', 'w') as f:
    f.write(json_data)

This allows you to handle the conversion explicitly and then perform the file operation.

4

Handling binary mode with json.dump(): If you need to open the file in binary mode (‘wb’), you can convert the dictionary to a JSON string and then encode it to a byte format before writing.

import json

data = {"name": "John", "age": 30, "city": "New York"}
with open('data.json', 'wb') as f:
    json.dump(data, f)

However, using binary mode (‘wb’) is unnecessary unless you’re handling data that needs to be in binary format, such as when working with non-text files. For normal JSON operations, text mode (‘w’) is recommended.