~/talk

Processing large JSON files without running out of memory

Talkat PyCon US 2025 · 2025-05-16..05-18· [python, web-performance]
slides:none on file

Shows concrete numbers and tools: json.load -> 50 MB file becomes ~200 MB (4x) measured with user/bin/time, resource and tracemalloc. Demonstrates three fixes with real outcomes: awkward/Arrow -> peak ~100 MB (2x) but different API, message-spec schema -> ~100 MB but may still read whole file into memory, and ijson streaming -> ~1 MB peak independent of file size. Notes pandas/polars can use more memory, recommends measuring peak and choosing streaming, schema subsetting, or Arrow based on data shape and API needs.

AI-written summary · about

  1. 0:00Introduction
  2. 3:07JSON memory usage
  3. 7:41Buying more RAM
  4. 10:30Efficient in-memory representation
  5. 15:49Load only needed data
  6. 19:43Stream JSON efficiently
  7. 25:38JSON alternatives
  8. 29:31Summary
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