JSON serialization of Google App Engine models

Question

I\'ve been searching for quite a while with no success. My project isn\'t using Django, is there a simple way to serialize App Engine models (google.appengine.ext.db.Model)

Answer 1

I've extended the JSON Encoder class written by dpatru to support:

• Query results properties (e.g. car.owner_set)
• ReferenceProperty - recursively turn it into JSON

• Filtering properties - only properties with a verbose_name will be encoded into JSON

  class DBModelJSONEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
      """Encodes a db.Model into JSON"""
  
      def default(self, obj):
          if (isinstance(obj, db.Query)):
              # It's a reference query (holding several model instances)
              return [self.default(item) for item in obj]
  
          elif (isinstance(obj, db.Model)):
              # Only properties with a verbose name will be displayed in the JSON output
              properties = obj.properties()
              filtered_properties = filter(lambda p: properties[p].verbose_name != None, properties)
  
              # Turn each property of the DB model into a JSON-serializeable entity
              json_dict = dict([(
                      p,
                      getattr(obj, p)
                          if (not isinstance(getattr(obj, p), db.Model))
                          else
                      self.default(getattr(obj, p)) # A referenced model property
                  ) for p in filtered_properties])
  
              json_dict['id'] = obj.key().id() # Add the model instance's ID (optional - delete this if you do not use it)
  
              return json_dict
  
          else:
              # Use original JSON encoding
              return json.JSONEncoder.default(self, obj)