Micropython: bytearray in json-file - json

Question

i'm using micropython in the newest version. I also us an DS18b20 temperature sensor. An adress of theses sensor e.g. is "b'(b\xe5V\xb5\x01<:'". These is the string representation of an an bytearray. If i use this to save the adress in a json file, i run in some problems:
If i store directly "b'(b\xe5V\xb5\x01<:'" after reading the json-file there are no single backslahes, and i get b'(bxe5Vxb5x01<:' inside python
If i escape the backslashes like "b'(b\xe5V\xb5\x01<:'" i get double backslashes in python: b'(b\xe5V\xb5\x01<:'
How do i get an single backslash?
Thank you

Answer 1

You can't save bytes in JSON with micropython. As far as JSON is concerned that's just some string. Even if you got it to give you what you think you want (ie. single backslashes) it still wouldn't be bytes. So, you are faced with making some form of conversion, no-matter-what.
One idea is that you could convert it to an int, and then convert it back when you open it. Below is a simple example. Of course you don't have to have a class and staticmethods to do this. It just seemed like a good way to wrap it all into one, and not even need an instance of it hanging around. You can dump the entire class in some other file, import it in the necessary file, and just call it's methods as you need them.
import math, ujson, utime
class JSON(object):
#staticmethod
def convert(data:dict, convert_keys=None) -> dict:
if isinstance(convert_keys, (tuple, list)):
for key in convert_keys:
if isinstance(data[key], (bytes, bytearray)):
data[key] = int.from_bytes(data[key], 'big')
elif isinstance(data[key], int):
data[key] = data[key].to_bytes(1 if not data[key]else int(math.log(data[key], 256)) + 1, 'big')
return data
#staticmethod
def save(filename:str, data:dict, convert_keys=None) -> None:
#dump doesn't seem to like working directly with open
with open(filename, 'w') as doc:
ujson.dump(JSON.convert(data, convert_keys), doc)
#staticmethod
def open(filename:str, convert_keys=None) -> dict:
return JSON.convert(ujson.load(open(filename, 'r')), convert_keys)
#example with both styles of bytes for the sake of being thorough
json_data = dict(address=bytearray(b'\xFF\xEE\xDD\xCC'), data=b'\x00\x01\02\x03', date=utime.mktime(utime.localtime()))
keys = ['address', 'data'] #list of keys to convert to int/bytes
JSON.save('test.json', json_data, keys)
json_data = JSON.open('test.json', keys)
print(json_data) #{'date': 1621035727, 'data': b'\x00\x01\x02\x03', 'address': b'\xff\xee\xdd\xcc'}
You may also want to note that with this method you never actually touch any JSON. You put in a dict, you get out a dict. All the JSON is managed "behind the scenes". Regardless of all of this, I would say using struct would be a better option. You said JSON though so, my answer is about JSON.