test_json.py

"""Serialization.

@see: https://www.learnpython.org/en/Serialization

Python provides built-in JSON libraries to encode and decode JSON.
"""

import json


def test_json():
    """JSON serialization."""

    # There are two basic formats for JSON data. Either in a string or the object data-structure.
    # The object data-structure, in Python, consists of lists and dictionaries nested inside each
    # other. The object data-structure allows one to use python methods (for lists and dictionaries)
    # to add, list, search and remove elements from the data-structure. The String format is mainly
    # used to pass the data into another program or load into a data-structure.

    person_dictionary = {'first_name': 'John', 'last_name': 'Smith', 'age': 42}
    assert person_dictionary['first_name'] == 'John'
    assert person_dictionary['age'] == 42

    json_string = '{"first_name": "John", "last_name": "Smith", "age": 42}'

    # To load JSON back to a data structure, use the "loads" method. This method takes a string
    # and turns it back into the json object data-structure:
    person_parsed_dictionary = json.loads(json_string)

    assert person_parsed_dictionary == person_dictionary
    assert person_parsed_dictionary['first_name'] == 'John'
    assert person_parsed_dictionary['age'] == 42

    # To encode a data structure to JSON, use the "dumps" method. This method takes an object and
    # returns a String:
    encoded_person_string = json.dumps(person_dictionary)
    
    assert json.loads(encoded_person_string) == json.loads(json_string)