json - Convert numpy type to python

Question

I have a list of dicts in the following form that I generate from pandas. I want to convert it to a json format.

list_val = [{1.0: 685}, {2.0: 8}]
output = json.dumps(list_val)

However, json.dumps throws an error: TypeError: 685 is not JSON serializable

I am guessing it's a type conversion issue from numpy to python(?).

However, when I convert the values v of each dict in the array using np.int32(v) it still throws the error.

EDIT: Here's the full code

            new = df[df[label] == label_new] 
            ks_dict = json.loads(content)
            ks_list = ks_dict['variables']
            freq_counts = []

            for ks_var in ks_list:

                    freq_var = dict()
                    freq_var["name"] = ks_var["name"]
                    ks_series = new[ks_var["name"]]
                    temp_df = ks_series.value_counts().to_dict()
                    freq_var["new"] = [{u: np.int32(v)} for (u, v) in temp_df.iteritems()]            
                    freq_counts.append(freq_var)

           out = json.dumps(freq_counts)

Answer 1

It looks like you're correct:

>>> import numpy
>>> import json
>>> json.dumps(numpy.int32(685))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/__init__.py", line 243, in dumps
    return _default_encoder.encode(obj)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/encoder.py", line 207, in encode
    chunks = self.iterencode(o, _one_shot=True)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/encoder.py", line 270, in iterencode
    return _iterencode(o, 0)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/encoder.py", line 184, in default
    raise TypeError(repr(o) + " is not JSON serializable")
TypeError: 685 is not JSON serializable

The unfortunate thing here is that numpy numbers' __repr__ doesn't give you any hint about what type they are. They're running around masquerading as ints when they aren't (gasp). Ultimately, it looks like json is telling you that an int isn't serializable, but really, it's telling you that this particular np.int32 (or whatever type you actually have) isn't serializable. (No real surprise there -- No np.int32 is serializable). This is also why the dict that you inevitably printed before passing it to json.dumps looks like it just has integers in it as well.

The easiest workaround here is probably to write your own serializer¹:

class MyEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
    def default(self, obj):
        if isinstance(obj, numpy.integer):
            return int(obj)
        elif isinstance(obj, numpy.floating):
            return float(obj)
        elif isinstance(obj, numpy.ndarray):
            return obj.tolist()
        else:
            return super(MyEncoder, self).default(obj)

You use it like this:

json.dumps(numpy.float32(1.2), cls=MyEncoder)
json.dumps(numpy.arange(12), cls=MyEncoder)
json.dumps({'a': numpy.int32(42)}, cls=MyEncoder)

etc.

^{1Or you could just write the default function and pass that as the defaut keyword argument to json.dumps. In this scenario, you'd replace the last line with raise TypeError, but ... meh. The class is more extensible :-)}