TypeError: the JSON object must be str, bytes or bytearray, not dict

When I try to json.load the following dict, I'm facing the "TypeError: the JSON object must be str, bytes or bytearray, not dict" error.

payload = { 
    "name": "Tenali Ramakrishna", 
    "gender": "male", 
    "email": "[email protected]", 
    "status":"active"
    }

new_payload = json.loads(payload)
print(new_payload)

Why is This Error?

The error message “TypeError: the JSON object must be str, bytes, or bytearray, not dict” in Python indicates that you are trying to serialize (convert to JSON format) a Python dictionary (dict), but the object passed to the JSON serialization function is already a dictionary. JSON serialization functions expect input in the form of a string (str), bytes (bytes), or bytearray (bytearray), not a dictionary.

Here’s a breakdown of the key components of the error message

• TypeError: This is a built-in exception in Python raised when an operation is performed on an object of an inappropriate type.

• the JSON object must be str, bytes, or bytearray: Specifies the valid types that the JSON serialization function expects.

• not dict: Indicates that the object provided for JSON serialization is a dictionary (dict), which is not a valid input type.

Address this error

You need to use the json.dumps() function to convert the dictionary to a JSON-formatted string before passing it to functions or methods that expect JSON data.

Example:

import json

# Your dictionary
my_dict = {'key': 'value', 'number': 42}

# Convert the dictionary to a JSON-formatted string
json_string = json.dumps(my_dict)

# Now you can use json_string where JSON-formatted data is expected

In the corrected code:

• The json.dumps() function is used to serialize the dictionary (my_dict) to a JSON-formatted string (json_string).
• json_string can now be used where JSON-formatted data is expected, such as when sending data over the network or storing it in a file.