Retrieving JSON objects from a text file (using Python)

Question

I have thousands of text files containing multiple JSON objects, but unfortunately there is no delimiter between the objects. Objects are stored as dictionaries and some of

Answer 1

Why don't you load the file as string, replace all }{ with },{ and surround the whole thing with []? Something like:

re.sub('\}\s*?\{', '\}, \{', string_read_from_a_file)

Or simple string replace if you are sure you always have }{ without whitespaces in between.

In case you expect }{ to occur in strings as well, you could also split on }{ and evaluate each fragment with json.load, in case you get an error, the fragment wasn't complete and you have to add the next to the first one and so forth.

Answer 2

Replace a file with that junk in it:

$ sed -i -e 's;}{;}, {;g' foo

Do it on the fly in Python:

junkJson.replace('}{', '}, {')

Answer 3

How about reading through the file incrementing a counter every time a { is found and decrementing it when you come across a }. When your counter reaches 0 you'll know that you've come to the end of the first object so send that through json.load and start counting again. Then just repeat to completion.