HTTP requests and JSON parsing in Python

I recommend using the awesome requests library:

import requests

url = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/json'

params = dict(
    origin='Chicago,IL',
    destination='Los+Angeles,CA',
    waypoints='Joplin,MO|Oklahoma+City,OK',
    sensor='false'
)

resp = requests.get(url=url, params=params)
data = resp.json() # Check the JSON Response Content documentation below

JSON Response Content: https://requests.readthedocs.io/en/master/user/quickstart/#json-response-content

The requests Python module takes care of both retrieving JSON data and decoding it, due to its builtin JSON decoder. Here is an example taken from the module's documentation:

>>> import requests
>>> r = requests.get('https://github.com/timeline.json')
>>> r.json()
[{u'repository': {u'open_issues': 0, u'url': 'https://github.com/...

So there is no use of having to use some separate module for decoding JSON.

import urllib
import json

url = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/json?origin=Chicago,IL&destination=Los+Angeles,CA&waypoints=Joplin,MO|Oklahoma+City,OK&sensor=false'
result = json.load(urllib.urlopen(url))

Use the requests library, pretty print the results so you can better locate the keys/values you want to extract, and then use nested for loops to parse the data. In the example I extract step by step driving directions.

import json, requests, pprint

url = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/json?'

params = dict(
    origin='Chicago,IL',
    destination='Los+Angeles,CA',
    waypoints='Joplin,MO|Oklahoma+City,OK',
    sensor='false'
)


data = requests.get(url=url, params=params)
binary = data.content
output = json.loads(binary)

# test to see if the request was valid
#print output['status']

# output all of the results
#pprint.pprint(output)

# step-by-step directions
for route in output['routes']:
        for leg in route['legs']:
            for step in leg['steps']:
                print step['html_instructions']