AttributeError("'str' object has no attribute 'read'")

In Python I'm getting an error:

Exception:  (<type 'exceptions.AttributeError'>,
AttributeError("'str' object has no attribute 'read'",), <traceback object at 0x1543ab8>)

Given python code:

def getEntries (self, sub):
    url = 'http://www.reddit.com/'
    if (sub != ''):
        url += 'r/' + sub
    
    request = urllib2.Request (url + 
        '.json', None, {'User-Agent' : 'Reddit desktop client by /user/RobinJ1995/'})
    response = urllib2.urlopen (request)
    jsonStr = response.read()
    
    return json.load(jsonStr)['data']['children']

What does this error mean and what did I do to cause it?

Solution 1:

The problem is that for json.load you should pass a file like object with a read function defined. So either you use json.load(response) or json.loads(response.read()).

Solution 2:

Ok, this is an old thread but. I had a same issue, my problem was I used json.load instead of json.loads

This way, json has no problem with loading any kind of dictionary.

Official documentation

json.load - Deserialize fp (a .read()-supporting text file or binary file containing a JSON document) to a Python object using this conversion table.

json.loads - Deserialize s (a str, bytes or bytearray instance containing a JSON document) to a Python object using this conversion table.

Solution 3:

If you get a python error like this:

AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'some_method'

You probably poisoned your object accidentally by overwriting your object with a string.

How to reproduce this error in python with a few lines of code:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import json
def foobar(json):
    msg = json.loads(json)

foobar('{"batman": "yes"}')

Run it, which prints:

AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'loads'

But change the name of the variablename, and it works fine:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import json
def foobar(jsonstring):
    msg = json.loads(jsonstring)

foobar('{"batman": "yes"}')

This error is caused when you tried to run a method within a string. String has a few methods, but not the one you are invoking. So stop trying to invoke a method which String does not define and start looking for where you poisoned your object.