Difference Between json.dumps and json.loads

json.loads take a string as input and returns a dictionary as output where the json.dumps take a dictionary as input and returns a string as output.

For example:

import json

test_string = """
        {"data":[{"id": 5001, "type": "A"},{"id": 5002, "type": "D"}, 
        {"id": 5003, "type": "D"},{"id": 5004, "type": "D"},
        {"id": 5005, "type": "C"},{"id": 5006, "type": "C"},
        {"id": 5007, "type": "C"}]}
        """

test_dict = {"data":[{"id": 5001, "type": "A"},{"id": 5002, "type": "D"}, 
        {"id": 5003, "type": "D"},{"id": 5004, "type": "D"},
        {"id": 5005, "type": "C"},{"id": 5006, "type": "C"},
        {"id": 5007, "type": "C"}]}
        

Let’s load them, starting with the string

json.loads(test_string)

{'data': [{'id': 5001, 'type': 'A'},
  {'id': 5002, 'type': 'D'},
  {'id': 5003, 'type': 'D'},
  {'id': 5004, 'type': 'D'},
  {'id': 5005, 'type': 'C'},
  {'id': 5006, 'type': 'C'},
  {'id': 5007, 'type': 'C'}]}

Let’s load the dictionary.

json.dumps(test_dict)

'{"data": [{"id": 5001, "type": "A"}, {"id": 5002, "type": "D"}, {"id": 5003, "type": "D"}, {"id": 5004, "type": "D"}, {"id": 5005, "type": "C"}, {"id": 5006, "type": "C"}, {"id": 5007, "type": "C"}]}'

As you expected, if we convert the dictionary to string, then we can use the json.loads. For example:

json.loads(json.dumps(test_dict))

{'data': [{'id': 5001, 'type': 'A'},
  {'id': 5002, 'type': 'D'},
  {'id': 5003, 'type': 'D'},
  {'id': 5004, 'type': 'D'},
  {'id': 5005, 'type': 'C'},
  {'id': 5006, 'type': 'C'},
  {'id': 5007, 'type': 'C'}]}