Use Python for Creating JSON

Question

I want to use Python for creating JSON.

Since I found no library which can help me, I want to know if it's possible to inspect the order of the classes in a Python file?

Example

# example.py
class Foo:
    pass

class Bar:
    pass

If I import example, I want to know the order of the classes. In this case it is [Foo, Bar] and not [Bar, Foo].

Is this possible? If "yes", how?

Background

I am not happy with yaml/json. I have the vague idea to create config via Python classes (only classes, not instantiation to objects).

Answers which help me to get to my goal (Create JSON with a tool which is easy and fun to use) are welcome.

Answer 1

The inspect module can tell the line numbers of the class declarations:

import inspect

def get_classes(module):
    for name, value in inspect.getmembers(module):
        if inspect.isclass(value):
            _, line = inspect.getsourcelines(value)
            yield line, name

So the following code:

import example

for line, name in sorted(get_classes(example)):
    print line, name

Prints:

2 Foo
5 Bar