How do I JSON serialize a Python dictionary?

Question

Update: Python now has its own json handler, simply use import json instead of using simplejson.

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The Django serializers module is designed to serialize Django ORM objects. If you want to encode a regular Python dictionary you should use simplejson, which ships with Django in case you don't have it installed already.

import json

def json_response(something):
    return HttpResponse(json.dumps(something))

I'd suggest sending it back with an application/javascript Content-Type header (you could also use application/json but that will prevent you from debugging in your browser):

import json

def json_response(something):
    return HttpResponse(
        json.dumps(something),
        content_type = 'application/javascript; charset=utf8'
    )

What about a JsonResponse Class that extends HttpResponse:

from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.utils import simplejson

class JsonResponse(HttpResponse):
    def __init__(self, data):
        content = simplejson.dumps(data,
                                   indent=2,
                                   ensure_ascii=False)
        super(JsonResponse, self).__init__(content=content,
                                           mimetype='application/json; charset=utf8')

With newer versions of Django you can just use JsonResponse provided by django.http:

from django.http import JsonResponse

def my_view(request):
    json_object = {'howdy': True}
    return JsonResponse(json_object)

You can find more details in the official docs.

In python 2.6 and higher there is a nice JSON library, which has many functions among which is json.dumps() which serializes an object into a string.

So you can do something like this:

import json
print json.dumps({'howdy' : True })