Parse JSON safely

Safely parse JSON strings while handling malformed input gracefully.

json exceptions try-except

Implement a function `safe_json_loads(json_string, default=None)` that attempts to parse a JSON string using Python's `json` module. If the input is not a string or is invalid JSON, the function should catch the appropriate exceptions and return the `default` value. Otherwise, it should return the parsed object.

The function signature: `def safe_json_loads(json_string, default=None):`

Ensure it handles all expected error cases gracefully. The function should never raise an exception.

Constraints

- Input `json_string` can be any Python object, but typically a string.
- The maximum length of `json_string` is reasonable (within typical memory limits).
- Complexity: O(n) based on the JSON parsing.

Example

>>> safe_json_loads('{"a": 1}')
{'a': 1}
>>> safe_json_loads('invalid json')
>>> safe_json_loads('invalid json', default=[])
[]
>>> safe_json_loads(12345, default='fallback')
'fallback'

8 points ~10 min

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Hints

Catch `json.JSONDecodeError` for invalid JSON strings.

The input might not be a string—consider what exception occurs when passing a non-string to `json.loads`.

Use a single `try`/`except` block to handle both cases.

Test Results

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