How to JSON serialize sets?

Only dictionaries, Lists and primitive object types (int, string, bool) are available in JSON.

You can create a custom encoder that returns a list when it encounters a set. Here’s an example:

import json
class SetEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
    def default(self, obj):
        if isinstance(obj, set):
            return list(obj)
        return json.JSONEncoder.default(self, obj)

data_str = json.dumps(set([1,2,3,4,5]), cls=SetEncoder)
print(data_str)
# Output: '[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]'

You can detect other types this way too. If you need to retain that the list was actually a set, you could use a custom encoding. Something like return {'type':'set', 'list':list(obj)} might work.

To illustrate nested types, consider serializing this:

class Something(object):
    pass
json.dumps(set([1,2,3,4,5,Something()]), cls=SetEncoder)

This raises the following error:

TypeError: <__main__.Something object at 0x1691c50> is not JSON serializable

This indicates that the encoder will take the list result returned and recursively call the serializer on its children. To add a custom serializer for multiple types, you can do this:

class SetEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
    def default(self, obj):
        if isinstance(obj, set):
            return list(obj)
        if isinstance(obj, Something):
            return 'CustomSomethingRepresentation'
        return json.JSONEncoder.default(self, obj)
 
data_str = json.dumps(set([1,2,3,4,5,Something()]), cls=SetEncoder)
print(data_str)
# Output: '[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, "CustomSomethingRepresentation"]'

If you only need to encode sets, not general Python objects, and want to keep it easily human-readable, a simplified version of Raymond Hettinger’s answer can be used:

import json
import collections

class JSONSetEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
    """Use with json.dumps to allow Python sets to be encoded to JSON

    Example
    -------

    import json

    data = dict(aset=set([1,2,3]))

    encoded = json.dumps(data, cls=JSONSetEncoder)
    decoded = json.loads(encoded, object_hook=json_as_python_set)
    assert data == decoded     # Should assert successfully

    Any object that is matched by isinstance(obj, collections.Set) will
    be encoded, but the decoded value will always be a normal Python set.

    """

    def default(self, obj):
        if isinstance(obj, collections.Set):
            return dict(_set_object=list(obj))
        else:
            return json.JSONEncoder.default(self, obj)

def json_as_python_set(dct):
    """Decode json {'_set_object': [1,2,3]} to set([1,2,3])

    Example
    -------
    decoded = json.loads(encoded, object_hook=json_as_python_set)

    Also see :class:`JSONSetEncoder`

    """
    if '_set_object' in dct:
        return set(dct['_set_object'])
    return dct

I adapted Raymond Hettinger’s solution to python 3.

Here is what has changed:

• unicode disappeared
• updated the call to the parents’ default with super()
• using base64 to serialize the bytes type into str (because it seems that bytes in python 3 can’t be converted to JSON)

from decimal import Decimal
from base64 import b64encode, b64decode
from json import dumps, loads, JSONEncoder
import pickle

class PythonObjectEncoder(JSONEncoder):
    def default(self, obj):
        if isinstance(obj, (list, dict, str, int, float, bool, type(None))):
            return super().default(obj)
        return {'_python_object': b64encode(pickle.dumps(obj)).decode('utf-8')}

def as_python_object(dct):
    if '_python_object' in dct:
        return pickle.loads(b64decode(dct['_python_object'].encode('utf-8')))
    return dct

data = [1,2,3, set(['knights', 'who', 'say', 'ni']), {'key':'value'}, Decimal('3.14')]
j = dumps(data, cls=PythonObjectEncoder)
print(loads(j, object_hook=as_python_object))
# prints: [1, 2, 3, {'knights', 'who', 'say', 'ni'}, {'key': 'value'}, Decimal('3.14')]

If you need just quick dump and don’t want to implement custom encoder. You can use the following:

json_string = json.dumps(data, iterable_as_array=True)

This will convert all sets (and other iterables) into arrays. Just beware that those fields will stay arrays when you parse the JSON back. If you want to preserve the types, you need to write custom encoder.

Also make sure to have simplejson installed and required.
You can find it on PyPi.

One shortcoming of the accepted solution is that its output is very python specific. I.e. its raw json output cannot be observed by a human or loaded by another language (e.g. javascript).
example:

db = {
        "a": [ 44, set((4,5,6)) ],
        "b": [ 55, set((4,3,2)) ]
        }

j = dumps(db, cls=PythonObjectEncoder)
print(j)

Will get you:

{"a": [44, {"_python_object": "gANjYnVpbHRpbnMKc2V0CnEAXXEBKEsESwVLBmWFcQJScQMu"}], "b": [55, {"_python_object": "gANjYnVpbHRpbnMKc2V0CnEAXXEBKEsCSwNLBGWFcQJScQMu"}]}

I can propose a solution which downgrades the set to a dict containing a list on the way out, and back to a set when loaded into python using the same encoder, therefore preserving observability and language agnosticism:

from decimal import Decimal
from base64 import b64encode, b64decode
from json import dumps, loads, JSONEncoder
import pickle

class PythonObjectEncoder(JSONEncoder):
    def default(self, obj):
        if isinstance(obj, (list, dict, str, int, float, bool, type(None))):
            return super().default(obj)
        elif isinstance(obj, set):
            return {"__set__": list(obj)}
        return {'_python_object': b64encode(pickle.dumps(obj)).decode('utf-8')}

def as_python_object(dct):
    if '__set__' in dct:
        return set(dct['__set__'])
    elif '_python_object' in dct:
        return pickle.loads(b64decode(dct['_python_object'].encode('utf-8')))
    return dct

db = {
        "a": [ 44, set((4,5,6)) ],
        "b": [ 55, set((4,3,2)) ]
        }

j = dumps(db, cls=PythonObjectEncoder)
print(j)
ob = loads(j)
print(ob["a"])

Which gets you:

{"a": [44, {"__set__": [4, 5, 6]}], "b": [55, {"__set__": [2, 3, 4]}]}
[44, {'__set__': [4, 5, 6]}]

Note that serializing a dictionary which has an element with a key "__set__" will break this mechanism. So __set__ has now become a reserved dict key. Obviously feel free to use another, more deeply obfuscated key.

You don’t need to make a custom encoder class to supply the default method – it can be passed in as a keyword argument:

import json

def serialize_sets(obj):
    if isinstance(obj, set):
        return list(obj)

    return obj

json_str = json.dumps(set([1,2,3]), default=serialize_sets)
print(json_str)

results in [1, 2, 3] in all supported Python versions.

Shortened version of @AnttiHaapala:

json.dumps(dict_with_sets, default=lambda x: list(x) if isinstance(x, set) else x)

If you know for sure that the only non-serializable data will be sets, there’s a very simple (and dirty) solution:

json.dumps({"Hello World": {1, 2}}, default=tuple)

Only non-serializable data will be treated with the function given as default, so only the set will be converted to a tuple.

>>> import json
>>> set_object = set([1,2,3,4])
>>> json.dumps(list(set_object))
'[1, 2, 3, 4]'

you should try jsonwhatever

https://pypi.org/project/jsonwhatever/

pip install jsonwhatever

from jsonwhatever import JsonWhatEver

set_a = {1,2,3}

jsonwe = JsonWhatEver()

string_res = jsonwe.jsonwhatever('set_string', set_a)

print(string_res)