Reading JSON documents

The JSON notation for serializing data is very popular. For details, see http://json.org. Python includes the json module to serialize and deserialize data in this notation.

JSON documents are used widely by JavaScript applications. It's common to exchange data between Python-based servers and JavaScript-based clients using documents in JSON notation. These two tiers of the application stack communicate via JSON documents sent via the HTTP protocol. Interestingly, a data persistence layer may also use HTTP protocol and JSON notation.

How do we use the json module to parse JSON data in Python?

Getting ready

We've gathered some sailboat racing results in race_result.json. This file has information on teams, legs, and the orders in which the various teams finish the legs of the race.

In many cases, there are null values when a boat did not start, did not finish, or was disqualified from the race. In those cases, the finish position is assigned a score of one more than the...