Serializing a Python namedtuple to json

Question

What is the recommended way of serializing a namedtuple to json with the field names retained?

Serializing a namedtuple to json results in only the valu

Answer 1

It's impossible to serialize namedtuples correctly with the native python json library. It will always see tuples as lists, and it is impossible to override the default serializer to change this behaviour. It's worse if objects are nested.

Better to use a more robust library like orjson:

import orjson
from typing import NamedTuple

class Rectangle(NamedTuple):
    width: int
    height: int

def default(obj):
    if hasattr(obj, '_asdict'):
        return obj._asdict()

rectangle = Rectangle(width=10, height=20)
print(orjson.dumps(rectangle, default=default))

=>

{
    "width":10,
    "height":20
}