How to serialize SqlAlchemy result to JSON?

Question

Django has some good automatic serialization of ORM models returned from DB to JSON format.

How to serialize SQLAlchemy query result to JSON format?

I tried

Answer 1

Custom serialization and deserialization.

"from_json" (class method) builds a Model object based on json data.

"deserialize" could be called only on instance, and merge all data from json into Model instance.

"serialize" - recursive serialization

__write_only__ property is needed to define write only properties ("password_hash" for example).

class Serializable(object):
    __exclude__ = ('id',)
    __include__ = ()
    __write_only__ = ()

    @classmethod
    def from_json(cls, json, selfObj=None):
        if selfObj is None:
            self = cls()
        else:
            self = selfObj
        exclude = (cls.__exclude__ or ()) + Serializable.__exclude__
        include = cls.__include__ or ()
        if json:
            for prop, value in json.iteritems():
                # ignore all non user data, e.g. only
                if (not (prop in exclude) | (prop in include)) and isinstance(
                        getattr(cls, prop, None), QueryableAttribute):
                    setattr(self, prop, value)
        return self

    def deserialize(self, json):
        if not json:
            return None
        return self.__class__.from_json(json, selfObj=self)

    @classmethod
    def serialize_list(cls, object_list=[]):
        output = []
        for li in object_list:
            if isinstance(li, Serializable):
                output.append(li.serialize())
            else:
                output.append(li)
        return output

    def serialize(self, **kwargs):

        # init write only props
        if len(getattr(self.__class__, '__write_only__', ())) == 0:
            self.__class__.__write_only__ = ()
        dictionary = {}
        expand = kwargs.get('expand', ()) or ()
        prop = 'props'
        if expand:
            # expand all the fields
            for key in expand:
                getattr(self, key)
        iterable = self.__dict__.items()
        is_custom_property_set = False
        # include only properties passed as parameter
        if (prop in kwargs) and (kwargs.get(prop, None) is not None):
            is_custom_property_set = True
            iterable = kwargs.get(prop, None)
        # loop trough all accessible properties
        for key in iterable:
            accessor = key
            if isinstance(key, tuple):
                accessor = key[0]
            if not (accessor in self.__class__.__write_only__) and not accessor.startswith('_'):
                # force select from db to be able get relationships
                if is_custom_property_set:
                    getattr(self, accessor, None)
                if isinstance(self.__dict__.get(accessor), list):
                    dictionary[accessor] = self.__class__.serialize_list(object_list=self.__dict__.get(accessor))
                # check if those properties are read only
                elif isinstance(self.__dict__.get(accessor), Serializable):
                    dictionary[accessor] = self.__dict__.get(accessor).serialize()
                else:
                    dictionary[accessor] = self.__dict__.get(accessor)
        return dictionary