json.load() in Python

json.load() is a function from Python's built-in json module. It reads JSON data from a file and converts it into the corresponding Python object.

• JSON objects: dict
• JSON arrays: list
• JSON strings, numbers, booleans: Corresponding Python types

It requires a file opened in read ('r') mode and returns the parsed Python object.

Sample JSON File

Below is the sample JSON file name 'data.json' used in this article, click here to download.

Example: This example reads the JSON file and prints the entire data.

import json

with open('data.json', 'r') as f:
    d = json.load(f)

print(d)

Output

{'company': 'TechNova', 'year': 2025, 'is_active': True, 'employees': [{'id': 1, 'name': 'Aman', 'salary': 50000, 'skills': ['Python', 'SQL']}, {'id': 2, 'name': 'Sara', 'salary': 65000, 'skills': ['Java', 'AWS']}], 'projects': {'completed': 12, 'ongoing': 3}}

Explanation:

• json.load(f) converts the JSON file into a Python dictionary.
• The complete structured data is stored in d.

Syntax

json.load(file_object)

• Parameters: file_object - File opened in text read mode ('r').
• Return Type: Returns a Python object (dict, list, etc.) representing the JSON data.

Examples

Example 1: This example reads the company name and year from the JSON file. It shows how to access a key-value pairs.

import json

with open('data.json', 'r') as f:
    d = json.load(f)

print(d['company'], d['year'])

Output

TechNova 2025

Explanation: d['company'] and d['year'] access top-level keys from the dictionary returned by json.load(f).

Example 2: This example calculates the total salary of all employees stored in the JSON file. It demonstrates working with nested lists and dictionaries.

import json

with open('data.json', 'r') as f:
    d = json.load(f)

total = sum(emp['salary'] for emp in d['employees'])
print(total)

Output

115000

Explanation: d['employees'] returns a list of dictionaries and emp['salary'] extracts salary from each employee before summing them.

Example 3: This example prints the number of completed and ongoing projects. It demonstrates accessing nested dictionary values.

import json

with open('data.json', 'r') as f:
    d = json.load(f)

print(d['projects']['completed'])
print(d['projects']['ongoing'])

Output

12
3

Explanation: d['projects'] accesses the nested dictionary and ['completed'] and ['ongoing'] retrieve specific project counts.