How to load (or decode, deserialize) a JSON string into a Python object using json.loads()?

The json.loads() function allows you to load (or decode, deserialize) JSON strings (str, bytes or bytearray types) into Pythong objects:

json.loads(s, *, encoding=None, cls=None, object_hook=None, 
parse_float=None, parse_int=None, parse_constant=None, 
object_pairs_hook=None, **kw)¶

The json.dumps() functions uses the following default encoding table:

JSON Type	    Python Type
---------       -----------
object          dict
array           list
string          str
number (int)    int
number (real)   float
true            True
false           False
null            None

Some examples on using the json.loads() function:

>>> import json
>>> json.loads('["foo", {"bar":["baz", null, 1.0, 2]}]')
['foo', {'bar': ['baz', None, 1.0, 2]}]
>>> json.loads('"\\"foo\\bar"')
'"foo\x08ar'

If you try to load a string that is not a valid JSON string, you will get a json.decoder.JSONDecodeError:

>>> import json
>>> json.loads('{"1":3,"bar":foo,}')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "...\Python36-32\lib\json\__init__.py", line 354, in loads
    return _default_decoder.decode(s)
  ...
    raise JSONDecodeError("Expecting value", s, err.value) from None
json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 14 (char 13)

⇒ json.tool - JSON Pretty-Print Tool

⇐ Extending json.JSONEncoder Class

⇑ 'json' Module - JSON Encoder and Decoder

⇑⇑ Python Tutorials