While searching for a solution, I've stumbled upon this blog post: https://blog.mosthege.net/2016/11/12/json-deserialization-of-nested-objects/
It uses the same technique as stated in previous answers but with a usage of decorators. Another thing I found useful is the fact that it returns a typed object at the end of deserialisation
class JsonConvert(object):
class_mappings = {}
@classmethod
def class_mapper(cls, d):
for keys, cls in clsself.mappings.items():
if keys.issuperset(d.keys()): # are all required arguments present?
return cls(**d)
else:
# Raise exception instead of silently returning None
raise ValueError('Unable to find a matching class for object: {!s}'.format(d))
@classmethod
def complex_handler(cls, Obj):
if hasattr(Obj, '__dict__'):
return Obj.__dict__
else:
raise TypeError('Object of type %s with value of %s is not JSON serializable' % (type(Obj), repr(Obj)))
@classmethod
def register(cls, claz):
clsself.mappings[frozenset(tuple([attr for attr,val in cls().__dict__.items()]))] = cls
return cls
@classmethod
def to_json(cls, obj):
return json.dumps(obj.__dict__, default=cls.complex_handler, indent=4)
@classmethod
def from_json(cls, json_str):
return json.loads(json_str, object_hook=cls.class_mapper)
Usage:
@JsonConvert.register
class Employee(object):
def __init__(self, Name:int=None, Age:int=None):
self.Name = Name
self.Age = Age
return
@JsonConvert.register
class Company(object):
def __init__(self, Name:str="", Employees:[Employee]=None):
self.Name = Name
self.Employees = [] if Employees is None else Employees
return
company = Company("Contonso")
company.Employees.append(Employee("Werner", 38))
company.Employees.append(Employee("Mary"))
as_json = JsonConvert.to_json(company)
from_json = JsonConvert.from_json(as_json)
as_json_from_json = JsonConvert.to_json(from_json)
assert(as_json_from_json == as_json)
print(as_json_from_json)