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 <div class="section" id="input-and-output">
<h1>7. Input and Output<a class="headerlink" href="#input-and-output" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
There are several ways to present the output of a program; data can be printed
in a human-readable form, or written to a file for future use. This chapter will
discuss some of the possibilities.
<div class="section" id="fancier-output-formatting">
<h2>7.1. Fancier Output Formatting<a class="headerlink" href="#fancier-output-formatting" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
So far we’ve encountered two ways of writing values: expression statements and
the <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/simple_stmts.html#print"><code class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal notranslate">print</code></a> statement. (A third way is using the <code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">write()</code> method
of file objects; the standard output file can be referenced as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">sys.stdout</code>.
See the Library Reference for more information on this.)
Often you’ll want more control over the formatting of your output than simply
printing space-separated values. There are two ways to format your output; the
first way is to do all the string handling yourself; using string slicing and
concatenation operations you can create any layout you can imagine. The
string types have some methods that perform useful operations for padding
strings to a given column width; these will be discussed shortly. The second
way is to use the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.format()</code></a> method.
The <a class="reference internal" href="../library/string.html#module-string" title="string: Common string operations."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate">string</code></a> module contains a <a class="reference internal" href="../library/string.html#string.Template" title="string.Template"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate">Template</code></a> class which offers
yet another way to substitute values into strings.
One question remains, of course: how do you convert values to strings? Luckily,
Python has ways to convert any value to a string: pass it to the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#repr" title="repr"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">repr()</code></a>
or <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#str" title="str"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">str()</code></a> functions.
The <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#str" title="str"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">str()</code></a> function is meant to return representations of values which are
fairly human-readable, while <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#repr" title="repr"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">repr()</code></a> is meant to generate representations
which can be read by the interpreter (or will force a <a class="reference internal" href="../library/exceptions.html#exceptions.SyntaxError" title="exceptions.SyntaxError"><code class="xref py py-exc docutils literal notranslate">SyntaxError</code></a> if
there is no equivalent syntax). For objects which don’t have a particular
representation for human consumption, <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#str" title="str"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">str()</code></a> will return the same value as
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#repr" title="repr"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">repr()</code></a>. Many values, such as numbers or structures like lists and
dictionaries, have the same representation using either function. Strings and
floating point numbers, in particular, have two distinct representations.
Some examples:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; s = &#39;Hello, world.&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; str(s)
&#39;Hello, world.&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; repr(s)
&quot;&#39;Hello, world.&#39;&quot;
&gt;&gt;&gt; str(1.0/7.0)
&#39;0.142857142857&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; repr(1.0/7.0)
&#39;0.14285714285714285&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; x = 10 * 3.25
&gt;&gt;&gt; y = 200 * 200
&gt;&gt;&gt; s = &#39;The value of x is &#39; + repr(x) + &#39;, and y is &#39; + repr(y) + &#39;...&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; print s
The value of x is 32.5, and y is 40000...
&gt;&gt;&gt; # The repr() of a string adds string quotes and backslashes:
... hello = &#39;hello, world\n&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; hellos = repr(hello)
&gt;&gt;&gt; print hellos
&#39;hello, world\n&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; # The argument to repr() may be any Python object:
... repr((x, y, (&#39;spam&#39;, &#39;eggs&#39;)))
&quot;(32.5, 40000, (&#39;spam&#39;, &#39;eggs&#39;))&quot;
</pre></div>
</div>
Here are two ways to write a table of squares and cubes:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; for x in range(1, 11):
... print repr(x).rjust(2), repr(x*x).rjust(3),
... # Note trailing comma on previous line
... print repr(x*x*x).rjust(4)
...
 1 1 1
 2 4 8
 3 9 27
 4 16 64
 5 25 125
 6 36 216
 7 49 343
 8 64 512
 9 81 729
10 100 1000

&gt;&gt;&gt; for x in range(1,11):
... print &#39;{0:2d} {1:3d} {2:4d}&#39;.format(x, x*x, x*x*x)
...
 1 1 1
 2 4 8
 3 9 27
 4 16 64
 5 25 125
 6 36 216
 7 49 343
 8 64 512
 9 81 729
10 100 1000
</pre></div>
</div>
(Note that in the first example, one space between each column was added by the
way <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/simple_stmts.html#print"><code class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal notranslate">print</code></a> works: by default it adds spaces between its arguments.)
This example demonstrates the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.rjust" title="str.rjust"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.rjust()</code></a> method of string
objects, which right-justifies a string in a field of a given width by padding
it with spaces on the left. There are similar methods <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.ljust" title="str.ljust"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.ljust()</code></a> and
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.center" title="str.center"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.center()</code></a>. These methods do not write anything, they just return a
new string. If the input string is too long, they don’t truncate it, but
return it unchanged; this will mess up your column lay-out but that’s usually
better than the alternative, which would be lying about a value. (If you
really want truncation you can always add a slice operation, as in
<code class="docutils literal notranslate">x.ljust(n)[:n]</code>.)
There is another method, <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.zfill" title="str.zfill"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.zfill()</code></a>, which pads a numeric string on the
left with zeros. It understands about plus and minus signs:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; &#39;12&#39;.zfill(5)
&#39;00012&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; &#39;-3.14&#39;.zfill(7)
&#39;-003.14&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; &#39;3.14159265359&#39;.zfill(5)
&#39;3.14159265359&#39;
</pre></div>
</div>
Basic usage of the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.format()</code></a> method looks like this:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;We are the {} who say &quot;{}!&quot;&#39;.format(&#39;knights&#39;, &#39;Ni&#39;)
We are the knights who say &quot;Ni!&quot;
</pre></div>
</div>
The brackets and characters within them (called format fields) are replaced with
the objects passed into the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.format()</code></a> method. A number in the
brackets refers to the position of the object passed into the
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.format()</code></a> method.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;{0} and {1}&#39;.format(&#39;spam&#39;, &#39;eggs&#39;)
spam and eggs
&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;{1} and {0}&#39;.format(&#39;spam&#39;, &#39;eggs&#39;)
eggs and spam
</pre></div>
</div>
If keyword arguments are used in the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.format()</code></a> method, their values
are referred to by using the name of the argument.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;This {food} is {adjective}.&#39;.format(
... food=&#39;spam&#39;, adjective=&#39;absolutely horrible&#39;)
This spam is absolutely horrible.
</pre></div>
</div>
Positional and keyword arguments can be arbitrarily combined:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;The story of {0}, {1}, and {other}.&#39;.format(&#39;Bill&#39;, &#39;Manfred&#39;,
... other=&#39;Georg&#39;)
The story of Bill, Manfred, and Georg.
</pre></div>
</div>
<code class="docutils literal notranslate">'!s'</code> (apply <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#str" title="str"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">str()</code></a>) and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'!r'</code> (apply <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#repr" title="repr"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">repr()</code></a>) can be used to
convert the value before it is formatted.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; import math
&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;The value of PI is approximately {}.&#39;.format(math.pi)
The value of PI is approximately 3.14159265359.
&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;The value of PI is approximately {!r}.&#39;.format(math.pi)
The value of PI is approximately 3.141592653589793.
</pre></div>
</div>
An optional <code class="docutils literal notranslate">':'</code> and format specifier can follow the field name. This allows
greater control over how the value is formatted. The following example
rounds Pi to three places after the decimal.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; import math
&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;The value of PI is approximately {0:.3f}.&#39;.format(math.pi)
The value of PI is approximately 3.142.
</pre></div>
</div>
Passing an integer after the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">':'</code> will cause that field to be a minimum
number of characters wide. This is useful for making tables pretty.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; table = {&#39;Sjoerd&#39;: 4127, &#39;Jack&#39;: 4098, &#39;Dcab&#39;: 7678}
&gt;&gt;&gt; for name, phone in table.items():
... print &#39;{0:10} ==&gt; {1:10d}&#39;.format(name, phone)
...
Jack ==&gt; 4098
Dcab ==&gt; 7678
Sjoerd ==&gt; 4127
</pre></div>
</div>
If you have a really long format string that you don’t want to split up, it
would be nice if you could reference the variables to be formatted by name
instead of by position. This can be done by simply passing the dict and using
square brackets <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'[]'</code> to access the keys
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; table = {&#39;Sjoerd&#39;: 4127, &#39;Jack&#39;: 4098, &#39;Dcab&#39;: 8637678}
&gt;&gt;&gt; print (&#39;Jack: {0[Jack]:d}; Sjoerd: {0[Sjoerd]:d}; &#39;
... &#39;Dcab: {0[Dcab]:d}&#39;.format(table))
Jack: 4098; Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678
</pre></div>
</div>
This could also be done by passing the table as keyword arguments with the ‘**’
notation.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; table = {&#39;Sjoerd&#39;: 4127, &#39;Jack&#39;: 4098, &#39;Dcab&#39;: 8637678}
&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;Jack: {Jack:d}; Sjoerd: {Sjoerd:d}; Dcab: {Dcab:d}&#39;.format(**table)
Jack: 4098; Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678
</pre></div>
</div>
This is particularly useful in combination with the built-in function
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#vars" title="vars"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">vars()</code></a>, which returns a dictionary containing all local variables.
For a complete overview of string formatting with <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">str.format()</code></a>, see
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/string.html#formatstrings">Format String Syntax</a>.
<div class="section" id="old-string-formatting">
<h3>7.1.1. Old string formatting<a class="headerlink" href="#old-string-formatting" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">%</code> operator can also be used for string formatting. It interprets the
left argument much like a <code class="xref c c-func docutils literal notranslate">sprintf()</code>-style format string to be applied
to the right argument, and returns the string resulting from this formatting
operation. For example:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; import math
&gt;&gt;&gt; print &#39;The value of PI is approximately %5.3f.&#39; % math.pi
The value of PI is approximately 3.142.
</pre></div>
</div>
More information can be found in the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#string-formatting">String Formatting Operations</a> section.
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="reading-and-writing-files">
<h2>7.2. Reading and Writing Files<a class="headerlink" href="#reading-and-writing-files" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#open" title="open"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">open()</code></a> returns a file object, and is most commonly used with two
arguments: <code class="docutils literal notranslate">open(filename, mode)</code>.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; f = open(&#39;workfile&#39;, &#39;w&#39;)
&gt;&gt;&gt; print f
&lt;open file &#39;workfile&#39;, mode &#39;w&#39; at 80a0960&gt;
</pre></div>
</div>
The first argument is a string containing the filename. The second argument is
another string containing a few characters describing the way in which the file
will be used. mode can be <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'r'</code> when the file will only be read, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'w'</code>
for only writing (an existing file with the same name will be erased), and
<code class="docutils literal notranslate">'a'</code> opens the file for appending; any data written to the file is
automatically added to the end. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'r+'</code> opens the file for both reading and
writing. The mode argument is optional; <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'r'</code> will be assumed if it’s
omitted.
On Windows, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'b'</code> appended to the mode opens the file in binary mode, so there
are also modes like <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'rb'</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'wb'</code>, and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'r+b'</code>. Python on Windows makes
a distinction between text and binary files; the end-of-line characters in text
files are automatically altered slightly when data is read or written. This
behind-the-scenes modification to file data is fine for ASCII text files, but
it’ll corrupt binary data like that in <code class="file docutils literal notranslate">JPEG</code> or <code class="file docutils literal notranslate">EXE</code> files. Be
very careful to use binary mode when reading and writing such files. On Unix,
it doesn’t hurt to append a <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'b'</code> to the mode, so you can use it
platform-independently for all binary files.
<div class="section" id="methods-of-file-objects">
<h3>7.2.1. Methods of File Objects<a class="headerlink" href="#methods-of-file-objects" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
The rest of the examples in this section will assume that a file object called
<code class="docutils literal notranslate">f</code> has already been created.
To read a file’s contents, call <code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.read(size)</code>, which reads some quantity of
data and returns it as a string. size is an optional numeric argument. When
size is omitted or negative, the entire contents of the file will be read and
returned; it’s your problem if the file is twice as large as your machine’s
memory. Otherwise, at most size bytes are read and returned. If the end of
the file has been reached, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.read()</code> will return an empty string (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">&quot;&quot;</code>).
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; f.read()
&#39;This is the entire file.\n&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.read()
&#39;&#39;
</pre></div>
</div>
<code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.readline()</code> reads a single line from the file; a newline character (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">\n</code>)
is left at the end of the string, and is only omitted on the last line of the
file if the file doesn’t end in a newline. This makes the return value
unambiguous; if <code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.readline()</code> returns an empty string, the end of the file
has been reached, while a blank line is represented by <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'\n'</code>, a string
containing only a single newline.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; f.readline()
&#39;This is the first line of the file.\n&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.readline()
&#39;Second line of the file\n&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.readline()
&#39;&#39;
</pre></div>
</div>
For reading lines from a file, you can loop over the file object. This is memory
efficient, fast, and leads to simple code:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; for line in f:
 print line,

This is the first line of the file.
Second line of the file
</pre></div>
</div>
If you want to read all the lines of a file in a list you can also use
<code class="docutils literal notranslate">list(f)</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.readlines()</code>.
<code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.write(string)</code> writes the contents of string to the file, returning
<code class="docutils literal notranslate">None</code>.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; f.write(&#39;This is a test\n&#39;)
</pre></div>
</div>
To write something other than a string, it needs to be converted to a string
first:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; value = (&#39;the answer&#39;, 42)
&gt;&gt;&gt; s = str(value)
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.write(s)
</pre></div>
</div>
<code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.tell()</code> returns an integer giving the file object’s current position in the
file, measured in bytes from the beginning of the file. To change the file
object’s position, use <code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.seek(offset, from_what)</code>. The position is computed
from adding offset to a reference point; the reference point is selected by
the from_what argument. A from_what value of 0 measures from the beginning
of the file, 1 uses the current file position, and 2 uses the end of the file as
the reference point. from_what can be omitted and defaults to 0, using the
beginning of the file as the reference point.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; f = open(&#39;workfile&#39;, &#39;r+&#39;)
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.write(&#39;0123456789abcdef&#39;)
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.seek(5) # Go to the 6th byte in the file
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.read(1)
&#39;5&#39;
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.seek(-3, 2) # Go to the 3rd byte before the end
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.read(1)
&#39;d&#39;
</pre></div>
</div>
When you’re done with a file, call <code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.close()</code> to close it and free up any
system resources taken up by the open file. After calling <code class="docutils literal notranslate">f.close()</code>,
attempts to use the file object will automatically fail.
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; f.close()
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.read()
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File &quot;&lt;stdin&gt;&quot;, line 1, in &lt;module&gt;
ValueError: I/O operation on closed file
</pre></div>
</div>
It is good practice to use the <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/compound_stmts.html#with"><code class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal notranslate">with</code></a> keyword when dealing with file
objects. This has the advantage that the file is properly closed after its
suite finishes, even if an exception is raised on the way. It is also much
shorter than writing equivalent <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/compound_stmts.html#try"><code class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal notranslate">try</code></a>-<a class="reference internal" href="../reference/compound_stmts.html#finally"><code class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal notranslate">finally</code></a> blocks:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; with open(&#39;workfile&#39;, &#39;r&#39;) as f:
... read_data = f.read()
&gt;&gt;&gt; f.closed
True
</pre></div>
</div>
File objects have some additional methods, such as <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#file.isatty" title="file.isatty"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">isatty()</code></a> and
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#file.truncate" title="file.truncate"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">truncate()</code></a> which are less frequently used; consult the Library
Reference for a complete guide to file objects.
</div>
<div class="section" id="saving-structured-data-with-json">
<h3>7.2.2. Saving structured data with <a class="reference internal" href="../library/json.html#module-json" title="json: Encode and decode the JSON format."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate">json</code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#saving-structured-data-with-json" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
Strings can easily be written to and read from a file. Numbers take a bit more
effort, since the <code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate">read()</code> method only returns strings, which will have to
be passed to a function like <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#int" title="int"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">int()</code></a>, which takes a string like <code class="docutils literal notranslate">'123'</code>
and returns its numeric value 123. When you want to save more complex data
types like nested lists and dictionaries, parsing and serializing by hand
becomes complicated.
Rather than having users constantly writing and debugging code to save
complicated data types to files, Python allows you to use the popular data
interchange format called <a class="reference external" href="http://json.org">JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)</a>. The standard module called <a class="reference internal" href="../library/json.html#module-json" title="json: Encode and decode the JSON format."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate">json</code></a> can take Python
data hierarchies, and convert them to string representations; this process is
called serializing. Reconstructing the data from the string representation
is called deserializing. Between serializing and deserializing, the
string representing the object may have been stored in a file or data, or
sent over a network connection to some distant machine.
<div class="admonition note">
Note
The JSON format is commonly used by modern applications to allow for data
exchange. Many programmers are already familiar with it, which makes
it a good choice for interoperability.
</div>
If you have an object <code class="docutils literal notranslate">x</code>, you can view its JSON string representation with a
simple line of code:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>&gt;&gt;&gt; import json
&gt;&gt;&gt; json.dumps([1, &#39;simple&#39;, &#39;list&#39;])
&#39;[1, &quot;simple&quot;, &quot;list&quot;]&#39;
</pre></div>
</div>
Another variant of the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/json.html#json.dumps" title="json.dumps"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">dumps()</code></a> function, called <a class="reference internal" href="../library/json.html#json.dump" title="json.dump"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate">dump()</code></a>,
simply serializes the object to a file. So if <code class="docutils literal notranslate">f</code> is a <a class="reference internal" href="../glossary.html#term-file-object">file object</a>
opened for writing, we can do this:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>json.dump(x, f)
</pre></div>
</div>
To decode the object again, if <code class="docutils literal notranslate">f</code> is a <a class="reference internal" href="../glossary.html#term-file-object">file object</a> which has
been opened for reading:
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>x = json.load(f)
</pre></div>
</div>
This simple serialization technique can handle lists and dictionaries, but
serializing arbitrary class instances in JSON requires a bit of extra effort.
The reference for the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/json.html#module-json" title="json: Encode and decode the JSON format."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate">json</code></a> module contains an explanation of this.
<div class="admonition seealso">
See also
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/pickle.html#module-pickle" title="pickle: Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate">pickle</code></a> - the pickle module
Contrary to <a class="reference internal" href="#tut-json">JSON</a>, pickle is a protocol which allows
the serialization of arbitrarily complex Python objects. As such, it is
specific to Python and cannot be used to communicate with applications
written in other languages. It is also insecure by default:
deserializing pickle data coming from an untrusted source can execute
arbitrary code, if the data was crafted by a skilled attacker.
</div>
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 <ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#">7. Input and Output</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#fancier-output-formatting">7.1. Fancier Output Formatting</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#old-string-formatting">7.1.1. Old string formatting</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#reading-and-writing-files">7.2. Reading and Writing Files</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#methods-of-file-objects">7.2.1. Methods of File Objects</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#saving-structured-data-with-json">7.2.2. Saving structured data with <code class="docutils literal notranslate">json</code></a></li>
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