json_util – Tools for using Python’s json module with BSON documents

Tools for using Python’s json module with BSON documents.

This module provides two helper methods dumps and loads that wrap the native json methods and provide explicit BSON conversion to and from JSON. JSONOptions provides a way to control how JSON is emitted and parsed, with the default being the legacy PyMongo format. json_util can also generate Canonical or Relaxed Extended JSON when CANONICAL_JSON_OPTIONS or RELAXED_JSON_OPTIONS is provided, respectively.

Example usage (deserialization):

>>> from bson.json_util import loads
>>> loads('[{"foo": [1, 2]}, {"bar": {"hello": "world"}}, {"code": {"$scope": {}, "$code": "function x() { return 1; }"}}, {"bin": {"$type": "80", "$binary": "AQIDBA=="}}]')
[{u'foo': [1, 2]}, {u'bar': {u'hello': u'world'}}, {u'code': Code('function x() { return 1; }', {})}, {u'bin': Binary('...', 128)}]

Example usage (serialization):

>>> from bson import Binary, Code
>>> from bson.json_util import dumps
>>> dumps([{'foo': [1, 2]},
...        {'bar': {'hello': 'world'}},
...        {'code': Code("function x() { return 1; }", {})},
...        {'bin': Binary(b"")}])
'[{"foo": [1, 2]}, {"bar": {"hello": "world"}}, {"code": {"$code": "function x() { return 1; }", "$scope": {}}}, {"bin": {"$binary": "AQIDBA==", "$type": "00"}}]'

Example usage (with CANONICAL_JSON_OPTIONS):

>>> from bson import Binary, Code
>>> from bson.json_util import dumps, CANONICAL_JSON_OPTIONS
>>> dumps([{'foo': [1, 2]},
...        {'bar': {'hello': 'world'}},
...        {'code': Code("function x() { return 1; }")},
...        {'bin': Binary(b"")}],
...       json_options=CANONICAL_JSON_OPTIONS)
'[{"foo": [{"$numberInt": "1"}, {"$numberInt": "2"}]}, {"bar": {"hello": "world"}}, {"code": {"$code": "function x() { return 1; }"}}, {"bin": {"$binary": {"base64": "AQIDBA==", "subType": "00"}}}]'

Example usage (with RELAXED_JSON_OPTIONS):

>>> from bson import Binary, Code
>>> from bson.json_util import dumps, RELAXED_JSON_OPTIONS
>>> dumps([{'foo': [1, 2]},
...        {'bar': {'hello': 'world'}},
...        {'code': Code("function x() { return 1; }")},
...        {'bin': Binary(b"")}],
...       json_options=RELAXED_JSON_OPTIONS)
'[{"foo": [1, 2]}, {"bar": {"hello": "world"}}, {"code": {"$code": "function x() { return 1; }"}}, {"bin": {"$binary": {"base64": "AQIDBA==", "subType": "00"}}}]'

Alternatively, you can manually pass the default to json.dumps(). It won’t handle Binary and Code instances (as they are extended strings you can’t provide custom defaults), but it will be faster as there is less recursion.

Note

If your application does not need the flexibility offered by JSONOptions and spends a large amount of time in the json_util module, look to python-bsonjs for a nice performance improvement. python-bsonjs is a fast BSON to MongoDB Extended JSON converter for Python built on top of libbson. python-bsonjs works best with PyMongo when using RawBSONDocument.

Changed in version 2.8: The output format for Timestamp has changed from ‘{“t”: <int>, “i”: <int>}’ to ‘{“$timestamp”: {“t”: <int>, “i”: <int>}}’. This new format will be decoded to an instance of Timestamp. The old format will continue to be decoded to a python dict as before. Encoding to the old format is no longer supported as it was never correct and loses type information. Added support for $numberLong and $undefined - new in MongoDB 2.6 - and parsing $date in ISO-8601 format.

Changed in version 2.7: Preserves order when rendering SON, Timestamp, Code, Binary, and DBRef instances.

Changed in version 2.3: Added dumps and loads helpers to automatically handle conversion to and from json and supports Binary and Code

class bson.json_util.DatetimeRepresentation
LEGACY = 0

Legacy MongoDB Extended JSON datetime representation.

datetime.datetime instances will be encoded to JSON in the format {“$date”: <dateAsMilliseconds>}, where dateAsMilliseconds is a 64-bit signed integer giving the number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch UTC. This was the default encoding before PyMongo version 3.4.

New in version 3.4.

NUMBERLONG = 1

NumberLong datetime representation.

datetime.datetime instances will be encoded to JSON in the format {“$date”: {“$numberLong”: “<dateAsMilliseconds>”}}, where dateAsMilliseconds is the string representation of a 64-bit signed integer giving the number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch UTC.

New in version 3.4.

ISO8601 = 2

ISO-8601 datetime representation.

datetime.datetime instances greater than or equal to the Unix epoch UTC will be encoded to JSON in the format {“$date”: “<ISO-8601>”}. datetime.datetime instances before the Unix epoch UTC will be encoded as if the datetime representation is NUMBERLONG.

New in version 3.4.

class bson.json_util.JSONMode
LEGACY = 0

Legacy Extended JSON representation.

In this mode, dumps() produces PyMongo’s legacy non-standard JSON output. Consider using RELAXED or CANONICAL instead.

New in version 3.5.

RELAXED = 1

Relaxed Extended JSON representation.

In this mode, dumps() produces Relaxed Extended JSON, a mostly JSON-like format. Consider using this for things like a web API, where one is sending a document (or a projection of a document) that only uses ordinary JSON type primitives. In particular, the int, Int64, and float numeric types are represented in the native JSON number format. This output is also the most human readable and is useful for debugging and documentation.

See also

The specification for Relaxed Extended JSON.

New in version 3.5.

CANONICAL = 2

Canonical Extended JSON representation.

In this mode, dumps() produces Canonical Extended JSON, a type preserving format. Consider using this for things like testing, where one has to precisely specify expected types in JSON. In particular, the int, Int64, and float numeric types are encoded with type wrappers.

See also

The specification for Canonical Extended JSON.

New in version 3.5.

class bson.json_util.JSONOptions

Encapsulates JSON options for dumps() and loads().

Raises ConfigurationError on Python 2.6 if simplejson >= 2.1.0 is not installed and document_class is not the default (dict).

Parameters:
  • strict_number_long: If True, Int64 objects are encoded to MongoDB Extended JSON’s Strict mode type NumberLong, ie '{"$numberLong": "<number>" }'. Otherwise they will be encoded as an int. Defaults to False.
  • datetime_representation: The representation to use when encoding instances of datetime.datetime. Defaults to LEGACY.
  • strict_uuid: If True, uuid.UUID object are encoded to MongoDB Extended JSON’s Strict mode type Binary. Otherwise it will be encoded as '{"$uuid": "<hex>" }'. Defaults to False.
  • json_mode: The JSONMode to use when encoding BSON types to Extended JSON. Defaults to LEGACY.
  • document_class: BSON documents returned by loads() will be decoded to an instance of this class. Must be a subclass of collections.MutableMapping. Defaults to dict.
  • uuid_representation: The BSON representation to use when encoding and decoding instances of uuid.UUID. Defaults to PYTHON_LEGACY.
  • tz_aware: If True, MongoDB Extended JSON’s Strict mode type Date will be decoded to timezone aware instances of datetime.datetime. Otherwise they will be naive. Defaults to True.
  • tzinfo: A datetime.tzinfo subclass that specifies the timezone from which datetime objects should be decoded. Defaults to utc.
  • args: arguments to CodecOptions
  • kwargs: arguments to CodecOptions

See also

The specification for Relaxed and Canonical Extended JSON.

New in version 3.4.

Changed in version 3.5: Accepts the optional parameter json_mode.

bson.json_util.LEGACY_JSON_OPTIONS = JSONOptions(strict_number_long=False, datetime_representation=0, strict_uuid=False, json_mode=0, document_class=dict, tz_aware=True, uuid_representation=PYTHON_LEGACY, unicode_decode_error_handler=’strict’, tzinfo=<bson.tz_util.FixedOffset object>)

JSONOptions for encoding to PyMongo’s legacy JSON format.

See also

The documentation for bson.json_util.JSONMode.LEGACY.

New in version 3.5.

bson.json_util.DEFAULT_JSON_OPTIONS = JSONOptions(strict_number_long=False, datetime_representation=0, strict_uuid=False, json_mode=0, document_class=dict, tz_aware=True, uuid_representation=PYTHON_LEGACY, unicode_decode_error_handler=’strict’, tzinfo=<bson.tz_util.FixedOffset object>)

The default JSONOptions for JSON encoding/decoding.

The same as LEGACY_JSON_OPTIONS. This will change to RELAXED_JSON_OPTIONS in a future release.

New in version 3.4.

bson.json_util.CANONICAL_JSON_OPTIONS = JSONOptions(strict_number_long=True, datetime_representation=1, strict_uuid=True, json_mode=2, document_class=dict, tz_aware=True, uuid_representation=PYTHON_LEGACY, unicode_decode_error_handler=’strict’, tzinfo=<bson.tz_util.FixedOffset object>)

JSONOptions for Canonical Extended JSON.

See also

The documentation for bson.json_util.JSONMode.CANONICAL.

New in version 3.5.

bson.json_util.RELAXED_JSON_OPTIONS = JSONOptions(strict_number_long=False, datetime_representation=2, strict_uuid=True, json_mode=1, document_class=dict, tz_aware=True, uuid_representation=PYTHON_LEGACY, unicode_decode_error_handler=’strict’, tzinfo=<bson.tz_util.FixedOffset object>)

JSONOptions for Relaxed Extended JSON.

See also

The documentation for bson.json_util.JSONMode.RELAXED.

New in version 3.5.

bson.json_util.STRICT_JSON_OPTIONS = JSONOptions(strict_number_long=True, datetime_representation=2, strict_uuid=True, json_mode=0, document_class=dict, tz_aware=True, uuid_representation=PYTHON_LEGACY, unicode_decode_error_handler=’strict’, tzinfo=<bson.tz_util.FixedOffset object>)

DEPRECATED - JSONOptions for MongoDB Extended JSON’s Strict mode encoding.

New in version 3.4.

Changed in version 3.5: Deprecated. Use RELAXED_JSON_OPTIONS or CANONICAL_JSON_OPTIONS instead.

bson.json_util.dumps(obj, *args, **kwargs)

Helper function that wraps json.dumps().

Recursive function that handles all BSON types including Binary and Code.

Parameters:

Changed in version 3.4: Accepts optional parameter json_options. See JSONOptions.

Changed in version 2.7: Preserves order when rendering SON, Timestamp, Code, Binary, and DBRef instances.

bson.json_util.loads(s, *args, **kwargs)

Helper function that wraps json.loads().

Automatically passes the object_hook for BSON type conversion.

Raises TypeError, ValueError, KeyError, or InvalidId on invalid MongoDB Extended JSON.

Parameters:

Changed in version 3.5: Parses Relaxed and Canonical Extended JSON as well as PyMongo’s legacy format. Now raises TypeError or ValueError when parsing JSON type wrappers with values of the wrong type or any extra keys.

Changed in version 3.4: Accepts optional parameter json_options. See JSONOptions.

bson.json_util.object_pairs_hook(pairs, json_options=JSONOptions(strict_number_long=False, datetime_representation=0, strict_uuid=False, json_mode=0, document_class=dict, tz_aware=True, uuid_representation=PYTHON_LEGACY, unicode_decode_error_handler=’strict’, tzinfo=<bson.tz_util.FixedOffset object>))
bson.json_util.object_hook(dct, json_options=JSONOptions(strict_number_long=False, datetime_representation=0, strict_uuid=False, json_mode=0, document_class=dict, tz_aware=True, uuid_representation=PYTHON_LEGACY, unicode_decode_error_handler=’strict’, tzinfo=<bson.tz_util.FixedOffset object>))
bson.json_util.default(obj, json_options=JSONOptions(strict_number_long=False, datetime_representation=0, strict_uuid=False, json_mode=0, document_class=dict, tz_aware=True, uuid_representation=PYTHON_LEGACY, unicode_decode_error_handler=’strict’, tzinfo=<bson.tz_util.FixedOffset object>))