Get json data via url and use in python (simplejson)

Question

I imagine this must have a simple answer, but I am struggling: I want to take a url (which outputs json) and get the data in a usable dictionary in python. I am stuck on the la

Answer 1

The first line reads the entire file. The second line then tries to read more from the file, but there's nothing left:

>>> f.read()             # this works
blah blah blah
>>> simplejson.load(f)

Either just omit the f.read() line, or save the value from read, and use it in loads:

json = f.read()
simplejson.loads(json)

Answer 2

Try

f = opener.open(req)
simplejson.load(f)

without running f.read() first. When you run f.read(), the filehandle's contents are slurped so there is nothing left when your call simplejson.load(f)

Answer 3

There's an even easier way - you dont need simplejson at all. Python can parse json into a dict/array using the eval statement as long as you set true/false/null to the right values.

# fetch the url
url = "https://api.twitter.com/1/users/lookup.json?user_id=6253282,18949452"
json = urllib2.urlopen(url).read()

# convert to a native python object
(true,false,null) = (True,False,None)
profiles = eval(json)