JSON could not be parsed error in Python

Question

I'm trying to write a Python script to make an Amazon purchase using the Zinc API (see: https://zinc.io/docs/#full-api). I should be able to do this through a single POST request, so I read up about urllib and urllib2 here.

However, when I run my script, I receive this error:

{"_type":"error","code":"invalid_json","message":"The JSON in your request could not be parsed."}

I'm following Zinc's code pretty precisely, so I'm not sure why I'm getting the error.

Here is what I'm running (Note: my personal information is excluded, but included when I run the script):

import urllib
import urllib2
import json

url = 'https://api.zinc.io/v0/order'
values = {"client_token" : "public",
          "retailer" : "amazon",
          "products" :[{"product_id" : "0679753354", "quantity" : 1}],
          "max_price" : 1700, "shipping_address" : {
              "first_name" : "NAME",
              "last_name" : "NAME",
              "address_line1" : "ADDRESS",
              "address_line2" : "",
              "zip_code" : "ZIP",
              "city" : "CITY",
              "state" : "STATE",
              "country" : "US"
              },
          "is_gift" : False,
          "shipping_method" : "cheapest",
          "payment_method" : {
              "name_on_card" : "NAME",
              "number" : "CARDNUMBER",
              "security_code" : "SECCODE",
              "expiration_month" : 1,
              "expiration_year": 2015
              },
          "billing_address" : {
              "first_name" : "NAME",
              "last_name" : "NAME",
              "address_line1" : "ADDRESS",
              "address_line2" : "",
              "zip_code" : "ZIP",
              "city" : "CITY",
              "state" : "STATE",
              "country" : "US",
              "phone_number" : "PHONE"
              },
          "retailer_credentials" : {
              "email" : "EMAIL",
              "password" : "PASSWORD"}
          }

data = urllib.urlencode(values)
req = urllib2.Request(url, data)
response = urllib2.urlopen(req)
the_page = response.read()

print the_page

Any ideas on how to fix this JSON parsing issue would be much appreciated, as I haven't been able to figure out what's wrong.

Hi fnwtp, i hope you are doing well. I am trying to build an application using the ZINC api, I was curious how is it working for you so far? CYou mentioned that "I am following Zinc's code pretty precisely," from where? Could you please tell me the steps I need to follow I am not familiar with python. Thank you in advance! — Carlos
– Carlos, Commented Oct 9, 2014 at 22:00

Daniel Roseman · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-29 16:59:05Z

2

You don't want to urlencode that data. That's for form values, not JSON.

In addition, you've imported the json module, but you're not using it on your data. You should do it like this:

data = json.dumps(values)
req = urllib2.Request(url, data, {'content-type': 'application/json'})

Although it's much easier and better to use the third-party requests library for this sort of thing.

answered Jul 29, 2014 at 16:59

Daniel Roseman

602k68 gold badges910 silver badges923 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

fnwtp Over a year ago

Thanks, Daniel. This works perfectly. I'll definitely check out the requests library. Cheers

Mark Watson · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-29 17:00:50Z

You're url encoding your request, but not turning the Python data into JSON that the server can understand. Instead of calling urllib.urlencode(values), you should call json.dumps(values).

For example:

import urllib
import urllib2
import json

url = 'https://api.zinc.io/v0/order'
values = {"client_token" : "public",
          "retailer" : "amazon",
          "products" :[{"product_id" : "0679753354", "quantity" : 1}],
          "max_price" : 1700, "shipping_address" : {
              "first_name" : "NAME",
              "last_name" : "NAME",
              "address_line1" : "ADDRESS",
              "address_line2" : "",
              "zip_code" : "ZIP",
              "city" : "CITY",
              "state" : "STATE",
              "country" : "US"
              },
          "is_gift" : False,
          "shipping_method" : "cheapest",
          "payment_method" : {
              "name_on_card" : "NAME",
              "number" : "CARDNUMBER",
              "security_code" : "SECCODE",
              "expiration_month" : 1,
              "expiration_year": 2015
              },
          "billing_address" : {
              "first_name" : "NAME",
              "last_name" : "NAME",
              "address_line1" : "ADDRESS",
              "address_line2" : "",
              "zip_code" : "ZIP",
              "city" : "CITY",
              "state" : "STATE",
              "country" : "US",
              "phone_number" : "PHONE"
              },
          "retailer_credentials" : {
              "email" : "EMAIL",
              "password" : "PASSWORD"}
          }

req = urllib2.Request(url, json.dumps(values))
response = urllib2.urlopen(req)
the_page = response.read()

print the_page

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

JSON could not be parsed error in Python

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related