JSON to text file using Python

Question

I have searched for a solution regarding this issue and I have not found one that I can understand. I am new to Python and need basic help understanding why I get the error message: TypeError: is not JSON serializable.

import requests
import json

r = requests.get("http://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/LAUCN040010000000005")

with open("C:\...MyPath...\Output.txt", "w") as outfile:
    json.dumps(r, outfile)

This is my simple code I am testing. I appreciate the help.

r is not a JSON object; you can't dumps something that isn't json. You can, however, first parse the bls string to a JSON object and then dumps it. I don't see much sense in that, though. — Marcus Müller
– Marcus Müller, Commented Jun 27, 2016 at 19:29

Ilia Choly · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-27 19:32:02Z

2

You don't need to convert it to/from json. Just keep it as text.

import requests

r = requests.get("http://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/LAUCN040010000000005")

with open("C:\Users\mhoward2\Documents\Python Scripts\Output.txt", "w") as outfile:
    outfile.write(r.text)

answered Jun 27, 2016 at 19:32

Ilia Choly

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2 Comments

Requiesit Over a year ago

Thank you very much> I now have some JSON on my hard drive. I have learned so much from stackoverflow over the years...VBA...SQL...and now Python. This is the first question I have ever had to ask.

Ilia Choly Over a year ago

glad I could help :)

Padraic Cunningham · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-27 19:32:43Z

1

You need to call .json() and dump or just write the content:

r = requests.get("http://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/LAUCN040010000000005")

with open("C:\Users\mhoward2\Documents\Python Scripts\Output.txt", "w") as outfile:
     outfile.write(r.content)

What you are trying to write currently is:

 <Response [200]>

which is a requests.models.Response object.

answered Jun 27, 2016 at 19:32

Padraic Cunningham

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4 Comments

Ilia Choly Over a year ago

content lets you access the response as bytes, so the call to open should probably have wb instead of just w

Padraic Cunningham Over a year ago

@iliacholy, not in python2.

Ilia Choly Over a year ago

What do you mean? (not saying you're wrong, just curious)

Padraic Cunningham Over a year ago

bytes is an alias for str in python2, type(r.content) -> str, in general you should use .content with requests and let it handle the encoding. Python 3 is obviously a different story

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