python - File handling with functions?

Question

So I got this code that is supposed to sort a dictionary within a json file alphabetically by key:

import json

def values(infile,outfile):
    with open(infile):
        data=json.load(infile)
        data=sorted(data)
        with open(outfile,"w"):
            json.dump(outfile,data)

values("values.json","values_out.json")

And when I run it I get this error:

AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'read'

I'm pretty sure I messed something up when I made the function but I don't know what.

EDIT: This is what the json file contains:

{"two": 2,"one": 1,"three": 3}

Answer 1

You are using the strings infile and outfile in your json calls, you need to use the file description instance, that you get using as keyword

def values(infile,outfile):
    with open(infile) as fic_in:
        data = json.load(fic_in)
        data = sorted(data)
        with open(outfile,"w") as fic_out:
            json.dump(data, fic_out)

You can group, with statements

def values(infile, outfile):
    with open(infile) as fic_in, open(outfile, "w") as fic_out:
        json.dump(sorted(json.load(fic_in)), fic_out)