Convert PyMongo Cursor to JSON (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 15 Jul, 2025

Prerequisites: MongoDB Python Basics This article is about converting the PyMongo Cursor to JSON. Functions like find() and find_one() returns the Cursor instance. Let's begin:

1. Importing Required Modules: Import the required module using the command:
   from pymongo import MongoClient
   from bson.json_util import dumps
   If MongoDB is already not installed on your machine you can refer to the guide: Guide to Install MongoDB with Python
2. Creating a Connection: Now we had already imported the module, its time to establish a connection to the MongoDB server, presumably which is running on localhost (host name) at port 27017 (port number).
   client = MongoClient(‘localhost’, 27017)
3. Accessing the Database: Since the connection to the MongoDB server is established. We can now create or use the existing database.
   mydatabase = client.name_of_the_database
4. Accessing the Collection: We now select the collection from the database using the following syntax:
   collection_name = mydatabase.name_of_collection
5. Getting the documents: Getting all the documents from the collection using find() method. It returns the instance of the Cursor.
   cursor = collection_name.find()
6. Converting the Cursor to JSON: Converting the Cursor to the JSON. First, we will convert the Cursor to the list of dictionary.
   list_cur = list(cursor)
   Now, converting the list_cur to the JSON using the method dumps() from bson.json_util
   json_data = dumps(list_cur)
   You can now save it to the file or can use it in the program using loads() function.

Below is the implementation.

Python3 1== `

Python Program for

demonstrating the

PyMongo Cursor to JSON

Importing required modules

from pymongo import MongoClient from bson.json_util import dumps, loads

Connecting to MongoDB server

client = MongoClient('host_name',

'port_number')

client = MongoClient('localhost', 27017)

Connecting to the database named

GFG

mydatabase = client.GFG

Accessing the collection named

gfg_collection

mycollection = mydatabase.College

Now creating a Cursor instance

using find() function

cursor = mycollection.find()

Converting cursor to the list

of dictionaries

list_cur = list(cursor)

Converting to the JSON

json_data = dumps(list_cur, indent = 2)

Writing data to file data.json

with open('data.json', 'w') as file: file.write(json_data)

`

Output: