python json parsing error

Question

I wrote a simple program to parse json:

#! /usr/bin/env python

import urllib2
import json

so = 'https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/users/507256?order=desc&sort=reputation&site=stackoverflow'

j = urllib2.urlopen(so)
print j.read()
j_obj = json.loads(j.read())

It fails with following output:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./so.sh", line 12, in <module>
    j_obj = json.loads(j.read())
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/__init__.py", line 338, in loads
    return _default_decoder.decode(s)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/decoder.py", line 365, in decode
    obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/decoder.py", line 383, in raw_decode
    raise ValueError("No JSON object could be decoded")
ValueError: No JSON object could be decoded

Any idea what I am doing wrong?

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-07 14:39:45Z

3

You cannot read the response twice. Remove the print line, or store the result of the j.read() call in a variable.

Next, the Stack Exchange API returns gzipped data, so you'll have to unzip it first:

import zlib

j = urllib2.urlopen(so)
json_data = j.read()
if j.info()['Content-Encoding'] == 'gzip':
    json_data = zlib.decompress(json_data, zlib.MAX_WBITS + 16)

print json_data
j_obj = json.loads(json_data)

You probably want to switch to using the requests module, which handles JSON and content encoding transparently:

import requests

so = 'https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/users/507256?order=desc&sort=reputation&site=stackoverflow'
response = requests.get(so)
j_obj = response.json()

edited Mar 7, 2020 at 14:39

answered Oct 5, 2014 at 3:18

Martijn Pieters

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