JSON to pandas DataFrame

Question

What I am trying to do is extract elevation data from a google maps API along a path specified by latitude and longitude coordinates as follows:

from urllib2         


        

Answer 1

Optimization of the accepted answer:

The accepted answer has some functioning problems, so I want to share my code that does not rely on urllib2:

import requests
from pandas import json_normalize
url = 'https://www.energidataservice.dk/proxy/api/datastore_search?resource_id=nordpoolmarket&limit=5'

response = requests.get(url)
dictr = response.json()
recs = dictr['result']['records']
df = json_normalize(recs)
print(df)

Output:

        _id                    HourUTC               HourDK  ... ElbasAveragePriceEUR  ElbasMaxPriceEUR  ElbasMinPriceEUR
0    264028  2019-01-01T00:00:00+00:00  2019-01-01T01:00:00  ...                  NaN               NaN               NaN
1    138428  2017-09-03T15:00:00+00:00  2017-09-03T17:00:00  ...                33.28              33.4              32.0
2    138429  2017-09-03T16:00:00+00:00  2017-09-03T18:00:00  ...                35.20              35.7              34.9
3    138430  2017-09-03T17:00:00+00:00  2017-09-03T19:00:00  ...                37.50              37.8              37.3
4    138431  2017-09-03T18:00:00+00:00  2017-09-03T20:00:00  ...                39.65              42.9              35.3
..      ...                        ...                  ...  ...                  ...               ...               ...
995  139290  2017-10-09T13:00:00+00:00  2017-10-09T15:00:00  ...                38.40              38.4              38.4
996  139291  2017-10-09T14:00:00+00:00  2017-10-09T16:00:00  ...                41.90              44.3              33.9
997  139292  2017-10-09T15:00:00+00:00  2017-10-09T17:00:00  ...                46.26              49.5              41.4
998  139293  2017-10-09T16:00:00+00:00  2017-10-09T18:00:00  ...                56.22              58.5              49.1
999  139294  2017-10-09T17:00:00+00:00  2017-10-09T19:00:00  ...                56.71              65.4              42.2 

PS: API is for Danish electricity prices

Answer 2

billmanH's solution helped me but didn't work until i switched from:

n = data.loc[row,'json_column']

to:

n = data.iloc[[row]]['json_column']

here's the rest of it, converting to a dictionary is helpful for working with json data.

import json

for row in range(len(data)):
    n = data.iloc[[row]]['json_column'].item()
    jsonDict = json.loads(n)
    if ('mykey' in jsonDict):
        display(jsonDict['mykey'])

Answer 3

I prefer a more generic method in which may be user doesn't prefer to give key 'results'. You can still flatten it by using a recursive approach of finding key having nested data or if you have key but your JSON is very nested. It is something like:

from pandas import json_normalize

def findnestedlist(js):
    for i in js.keys():
        if isinstance(js[i],list):
            return js[i]
    for v in js.values():
        if isinstance(v,dict):
            return check_list(v)


def recursive_lookup(k, d):
    if k in d:
        return d[k]
    for v in d.values():
        if isinstance(v, dict):
            return recursive_lookup(k, v)
    return None

def flat_json(content,key):
    nested_list = []
    js = json.loads(content)
    if key is None or key == '':
        nested_list = findnestedlist(js)
    else:
        nested_list = recursive_lookup(key, js)
    return json_normalize(nested_list,sep="_")

key = "results" # If you don't have it, give it None

csv_data = flat_json(your_json_string,root_key)
print(csv_data)

Answer 4

I found a quick and easy solution to what I wanted using json_normalize() included in pandas 1.01.

from urllib2 import Request, urlopen
import json

import pandas as pd    

path1 = '42.974049,-81.205203|42.974298,-81.195755'
request=Request('http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/elevation/json?locations='+path1+'&sensor=false')
response = urlopen(request)
elevations = response.read()
data = json.loads(elevations)
df = pd.json_normalize(data['results'])

This gives a nice flattened dataframe with the json data that I got from the Google Maps API.

Answer 5

You could first import your json data in a Python dictionnary :

data = json.loads(elevations)

Then modify data on the fly :

for result in data['results']:
    result[u'lat']=result[u'location'][u'lat']
    result[u'lng']=result[u'location'][u'lng']
    del result[u'location']

Rebuild json string :

elevations = json.dumps(data)

Finally :

pd.read_json(elevations)

You can, also, probably avoid to dump data back to a string, I assume Panda can directly create a DataFrame from a dictionnary (I haven't used it since a long time :p)

Answer 6

The problem is that you have several columns in the data frame that contain dicts with smaller dicts inside them. Useful Json is often heavily nested. I have been writing small functions that pull the info I want out into a new column. That way I have it in the format that I want to use.

for row in range(len(data)):
    #First I load the dict (one at a time)
    n = data.loc[row,'dict_column']
    #Now I make a new column that pulls out the data that I want.
    data.loc[row,'new_column'] = n.get('key')