When working with simplejson in Django, I sometimes need to send the information strictly in order.
values = {"entry1":"value1","entry2":"value2","entry3":"value3"}
return HttpResponse(simplejson.dumps(values),content_type="application/json")
That's what it returns
{"entry2": "value2", "entry3": "value3", "entry1": "value1"}
But I want it to returns this instead:
{"entry1":"value1","entry2":"value2","entry3":"value3"}
How can I send the information in order in simplejson?
I sometimes need to send the information strictly in order.
Don't use a dictionary then, use a list of tuples:
values = [("entry1", "value1"), ("entry2", "value2"), ("entry3", "value3")]
Dictionaries and JSON objects do not have a set order. Neither will preserve your input order, nor are they required to.
To quote the JSON RFC:
An object is an unordered collection of zero or more name/value pairs [...]
and the Python dict.items() documentation:
Keys and values are listed in an arbitrary order which is non-random, varies across Python implementations, and depends on the dictionary’s history of insertions and deletions.