JSON files

Read & Write

JSON

Reading a JSON file should look familiar:

df = pl.read_json("path.json")

use polars::prelude::*;

let mut file = std::fs::File::open("path.json").unwrap();
let df = JsonReader::new(&mut file).finish().unwrap();

Newline Delimited JSON

JSON objects that are delimited by newlines can be read into polars in a much more performant way than standard json.

df = pl.read_ndjson("path.json")

use polars::prelude::*;

let mut file = std::fs::File::open("path.json").unwrap();
let df = JsonLineReader::new(&mut file).finish().unwrap();

Write

df = pl.DataFrame({"foo": [1, 2, 3], "bar": [None, "bak", "baz"]})
# json
df.write_json("path.json")
# ndjson
df.write_ndjson("path.json")

use polars::prelude::*;

let mut df = df!(
    "foo" => &[1, 2, 3],
    "bar" => &[None, Some("bak"), Some("baz")],
)
.unwrap();

let mut file = std::fs::File::create("path.csv").unwrap();

// json
JsonWriter::new(&mut file)
    .with_json_format(JsonFormat::Json)
    .finish(&mut df)
    .unwrap();

// ndjson
JsonWriter::new(&mut file)
    .with_json_format(JsonFormat::JsonLines)
    .finish(&mut df)
    .unwrap();

Scan

Polars allows you to scan a JSON input only for newline delimited json. Scanning delays the actual parsing of the file and instead returns a lazy computation holder called a LazyFrame.

df = pl.scan_ndjson("path.json")

use polars::prelude::*;

let df = LazyJsonLineReader::new("path.json".to_string()).finish().unwrap();

Note about Rust usage

json functionality is not enabled by default. It must be added as an additional feature. This can be enabled via cargo add polars --features json or by directly adding it to your Cargo.toml

[dependencies]
polars = { version = "0.24.3", features = ["json"] }

Additionally, scanning of json files requires the lazy feature

[dependencies]
polars = { version = "0.24.3", features = ["json", "lazy"] }