How to overcome "datetime.datetime not JSON serializable"?

The "datetime.datetime not JSON serializable" error occurs when you try to serialize a datetime object to JSON directly using the json.dumps() function or similar JSON serialization methods. JSON serialization is by default not aware of Python's datetime objects, so you need to convert them to a JSON-serializable format before serializing.

To overcome this error, you can convert the datetime object to a string representation before serializing it to JSON. You can use the isoformat() method of the datetime object to achieve this. Here's an example:

python

import json
from datetime import datetime

# Create a datetime object
current_datetime = datetime.now()

# Convert datetime object to string using isoformat()
formatted_datetime = current_datetime.isoformat()

# Create a dictionary with the formatted datetime
data = {
    "timestamp": formatted_datetime,
    "message": "Hello, world!"
}

# Serialize the dictionary to JSON
json_data = json.dumps(data, indent=4)

print(json_data)

In this example, we're using the isoformat() method to convert the current_datetime object to a string format that's both human-readable and JSON-serializable. Then, we create a dictionary that includes this formatted datetime and some other data. Finally, we use json.dumps() to serialize the dictionary to JSON.

Keep in mind that if you're working with more complex data structures, you might need to recursively convert datetime objects to strings throughout the data before serializing.

Remember that serialization to JSON is not just about datetime objects; it applies to other non-serializable Python objects as well. You need to ensure that the data you're serializing consists of basic JSON-serializable data types (such as strings, numbers, lists, and dictionaries) or custom objects that implement a __json__() or __dict__() method to convert them to a JSON-serializable format.