Python 3 Get and parse JSON API

How would I parse a json api response with python? I currently have this:

import urllib.request
import json

url = 'https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json?print=pretty'

def response(url):
    with urllib.request.urlopen(url) as response:
        return response.read()

res = response(url)
print(json.loads(res))

I'm getting this error: TypeError: the JSON object must be str, not 'bytes'

What is the pythonic way to deal with json apis?

Solution 1:

Version 1: (do a pip install requests before running the script)

import requests
r = requests.get(url='https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json?print=pretty')
print(r.json())

Version 2: (do a pip install wget before running the script)

import wget

fs = wget.download(url='https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json?print=pretty')
with open(fs, 'r') as f:
    content = f.read()
print(content)

Solution 2:

you can use standard library python3:

import urllib.request
import json
url = 'http://www.reddit.com/r/all/top/.json'
req = urllib.request.Request(url)

##parsing response
r = urllib.request.urlopen(req).read()
cont = json.loads(r.decode('utf-8'))
counter = 0

##parcing json
for item in cont['data']['children']:
    counter += 1
    print("Title:", item['data']['title'], "\nComments:", item['data']['num_comments'])
    print("----")

##print formated
#print (json.dumps(cont, indent=4, sort_keys=True))
print("Number of titles: ", counter)

output will be like this one:

...
Title: Maybe we shouldn't let grandma decide things anymore.  
Comments: 2018
---- 
Title: Carrie Fisher and Her Stunt Double Sunbathing on the Set of Return of The Jedi, 1982  
Comments: 880
---- 
Title: fidget spinner  
Comments: 1537
---- 
Number of titles:  25