Reading JSON data from JS file

Question

I am uploading one JS file using HTML input file tag. I am reading the data in Python. Since in my data var acb_messages is written, I am not able to parse it. And I want to use this variable name to get the data so I can remove it.

var acb_messages = {"messages": [{
 "timestamp": 1475565742761,
 "datetime": "2016年10月04日 12:52:22 GMT+05:30",
 "number": "VM-449700",
 "id": 1276,
 "text": "Some text here",
 "mms": false,
 "sender": false
 }
]}

How can I parse it in Python and then how can I use it?

• Van Peer: please show what you've tried and the required output

Answer 1

Two approaches that I would try if I were at your place -

1. Convert my .js file to .json file and then using method suggested by @Sandeep Lade.

2. Reading .js file as string, cropping out the value part and then using json.loads(<cropped part>) as suggested by @rahul mr.

Here is how to achieve 2nd solution -

import json
with open('your_js_file.js') as dataFile:
 data = dataFile.read()
 obj = data[data.find('{') : data.rfind('}')+1]
 jsonObj = json.loads(obj)

What's happening here is that you are finding first reading your .js file (that contains js object that needs to be converted into json) as string, find first occurence of { and last occurence of }, crop that part of string, load it as json.

Hope this is what you are looking for.

Warning - Code works only if your js file contains js object only.

Answer 2

The options above are correct, but the JSON syntax in JS can be a little different than in Python:

example.js:

property.docs = {
 messages: {
 timestamp: 1475565742761,
 datetime: "2016年10月04日 12:52:22 GMT+05:30",
 number: "VM-449700",
 id: 1276,
 text: "Some text here",
 mms: false,
 sender: false
}
};

Therefore we need one more tweak that I found at: How to convert raw javascript object to python dictionary?

The complete code should be:

import json
import demjson
with open('example.js') as dataFile:
 data = dataFile.read()
 json_out = data[data.find('{'): data.rfind('}')+1]
 json_decode = demjson.decode(json_out)
print(json_decode)

Answer 3

import json
jsonfile=open("/path/to/json file")
data=json.load(jsonfile)

the above code will store will store your json data in a dictionary called data. You can then process the dictionary

• Cesar Moore: This code wouldn't work with the given sample from the OP, because it is Javascript.