jsonata-python

What it is and what it does

jsonata-python is a pure Python port of the JSONata reference implementation, a query and transformation language for JSON. It lets you write compact expressions to extract, filter, and reshape JSON data—similar to XPath for XML or jq for command-line JSON work. The package supports the full JSONata language specification with no external dependencies, making it straightforward to embed in Python applications or use as a CLI tool.

The package includes guardrails to protect against untrusted expressions: you can set execution timeouts, stack depth limits, and swap in alternative regex engines to prevent ReDoS attacks. It requires Python 3.10 or later, and date/time functions using ISO 8601 formats require Python 3.11+.

Use it for:

• Extract and transform JSON API responses in data pipelines without writing custom parsing code.
• Build a CLI tool that accepts JSONata expressions to query JSON files or stdin.
• Safely evaluate user-provided JSONata expressions in a web service with configurable timeout and stack limits.
• Filter and aggregate nested JSON structures in ETL workflows or reporting systems.
• Implement interactive REPL environments for JSON exploration and ad-hoc data analysis.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Evaluates JSONata expressions against JSON data, supporting the full JSONata language with no external runtime dependencies.

Yes. jsonata-python is actively maintained, has zero known vulnerabilities, installs with no friction, and is permissively licensed. Install it if you need to evaluate JSONata expressions in Python or want a command-line tool for JSON querying. The only caveat is the Python 3.10+ requirement and the ISO 8601 date/time limitation on Python versions below 3.11.

Install

jsonata-python on PyPI

pip install jsonata-python

uv add jsonata-python

poetry add jsonata-python

Installing jsonata-python

Before you install

Low friction install with no runtime dependencies. Actively maintained; last release 40 days ago with 104 repository stars.

License in practice

Apache License 2.0 (permissive): you can use, modify, and distribute freely in commercial and private projects, provided you include a copy of the license and note any changes.

Quickstart

pip install jsonata-python

import jsonata
data = {"example": [{"value": 4}, {"value": 7}, {"value": 13}]}
expr = jsonata.Jsonata("$sum(example.value)")
result = expr.evaluate(data)
print(result)  # 24

Requires Python 3.10 or later; ISO 8601 date/time functions require Python 3.11+

Verify before relying

• Performance characteristics when evaluating complex expressions against large datasets
• Behavior of date/time functions on Python 3.10 when ISO 8601 formats are used

Package facts

Evidence: jsonata_python-0.7.0-py3-none-any.whl

Keywords: json, jsonata

Tags

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