How to Serialize SQLAlchemy ORM Objects to JSON?

Converting SQLAlchemy ORM Objects to JSON

Serializing SQLAlchemy query results to JSON format can be a common task when working with web applications. While Django provides automated serialization, SQLAlchemy does not have an out-of-the-box serializer.

Initial Attempts and Error

You have attempted to use jsonpickle.encode and json.dumps to serialize SQLAlchemy objects, but encountered the following error:

TypeError: <Product('3', 'some name', 'some desc')> is not JSON serializable

Solution: Customizing Object Serialization

To overcome the serialization issue, you can create a custom class method that converts the object into a dictionary:

class User:
    def as_dict(self):
        return {c.name: getattr(self, c.name) for c in self.__table__.columns}

This as_dict() method dynamically generates a dictionary representation of the object by iterating over its table columns. You can then use User.as_dict() to serialize the object and pass it to JSON encoding.

Additional Resources

For further insights into converting SQLAlchemy objects to dictionaries, please refer to the following resources:

• [How to convert SQLAlchemy row object to a Python dict?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38425453/how-to-convert-sqlalchemy-row-object-to-a-python-dict) explains alternative approaches for generating dictionaries from SQLAlchemy objects.

Conclusion

By implementing a custom serialization method, you can successfully convert SQLAlchemy query results to JSON format, enabling you to use the data in JavaScript data grids like JQGrid.

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