dict2rel

dict2rel is a Python library which can transform JSON with any level of nesting into one or more tables which contain enough information that the tables can be modified and then converted back to the nested JSON format. Essentially, JSON can be converted to relational tables and then back.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Quick Start
• Documentation - GitHub Pages
• License

Installation

pip install dict2rel

Quick Start

from dict2rel import dict2rel
import pandas as pd  # you can also use polars.DataFrame

tables = dict2rel(
    [
        {
            "name": "relay-settings",
            "version": {
                "major": 1,
                "minor": 12,
                "patch": 1
            },
            "settings": [
                {
                    "key": "tempo",
                    "value": 12
                },
                {
                    "key": "delay",
                    "value": 14
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "response-settings",
            "version": {
                "major": 12,
                "minor": 0,
                "patch": 3
            },
            "settings": [
                {
                    "key": "throttle",
                    "value": "always"
                },
                {
                    "key": "burst",
                    "value": 0.43
                }
            ]
        },
    ],
    pd.DataFrame  # the tables will be of this type
)

tables will end up being a dict of the following tables:

*

*.settings

These tables can then be modified, maybe by adding a new column:

tables["*.settings"]["added"] = ["2025-12-18"] * len(tables["*.settings"])

and then converted back to nested JSON:

from dict2rel import rel2dict

transformed_data = rel2dict(tables)

which gives the following JSON:

[
    {
        "name": "relay-settings", 
        "version": {"major": 1, "minor": 12, "patch": 1}, 
        "settings": [
            {"key": "tempo", "value": 12, "added": "2025-12-18"}, 
            {"key": "delay", "value": 14, "added": "2025-12-18"}
        ]
    }, 
    {
        "name": "response-settings", 
        "version": {"major": 12, "minor": 0, "patch": 3}, 
        "settings": [
            {"key": "throttle", "value": "always", "added": "2025-12-18"}, 
            {"key": "burst", "value": 0.43, "added": "2025-12-18"}
        ]
    }
]

License

dict2rel is distributed under the terms of the MIT license.

Development

Make sure to run hatch fmt, hatch run black:run, hatch run test:run, and hatch run docs:build.