jsonpointerparse

Actually-unambiguous parsing of RFC 6901 JSON Pointers in Python

pip install jsonpointerparse

Unlike implementations such as stefankoegl/python-json-pointer, jsonpointerparse satisfies RFC 6901's entire spec without actually evaluating, accessing, or having knowledge of a target document. Consequently, its source code is tiny, and can be read faster than the documentation. There are no dependencies.

Serving as a utility or a library primitive, jsonpointerparse is designed to make it easier to write robust, bug-free implementations of evaluation and manipulation of JSON structures targeted by a JSON pointer. It doesn't care whether you're extending JSON Patch, another standard, or building a new one.

Basic Usage

from jsonpointerparse import JsonPointer
pointer = JsonPointer.from_string('/items/100')  # JsonPointer(parts=('items', 100))
print(pointer.parts)  # ('items', 100)

Documentation

JsonPointerPart

type JsonPointerPart = str | int | AfterEndOfArray

Each part in JsonPointer().parts is a valid, unescaped, type-converted reference token of a JSON Pointer.

A part's type lets you know if and how the part could be used in array operations on a future document.

• int: A part that could represent an array index if the targeted parent were an array.
  • Found if: Raw token is 0, or just digits with no leading zeros.
• AfterEndOfArray: A part that could represent a non-existent member after the last element of an array, if the targeted parent were an array.
  • Found if: Raw token is -, and is the last part in the pointer.
• str: Any part that doesn't meet the criteria for the other types, and thus cannot be used for array manipulation. It's unescaped, so it may include normal / and ~ characters. (escaped versions are ~1 and ~0, respectively)

Note: AfterEndOfArray is an empty singleton on which str() returns '-'. An AFTER_END_OF_ARRAY constant is also available with a reference to the singleton instance.

JsonPointer

@dataclass(frozen=True, slots=True)
class JsonPointer:
    parts: tuple[JsonPointerPart, ...] = ()

A lightweight, immutable dataclass to represent a JSON Pointer as validated, pre-processed, type-converted parts, ready for document evaluation.

Has a minimal API: parts, from_string(cls), to_string(self), @property is_root

In addition to validating and unescaping the pointer, from_string() converts parts to appropriate types for potential array operations without knowledge of the target document.

>>> pointer = JsonPointer.from_string('/~01~1bar/10 /001/100/-/-')
>>> pointer.parts
('~1/bar', '10 ', '001', 100, '-', AfterEndOfArray())

Here are those parts, before and after parsing: