Export pandas dataframe to json and back to a dataframe with columns in the same order

You can use parameter orient='split' in to_json/read_json which also save in json column names in list in original ordering:

df = pd.DataFrame({        'C':list('abcdef'),         'B':[4,5,4,5,5,4],         'A':[7,8,9,4,2,3],})print (df.to_json(orient='split')){"columns":["C","B","A"], "index":[0,1,2,3,4,5], "data":[["a",4,7],["b",5,8],         ["c",4,9],["d",5,4],["e",5,2],["f",4,3]]}df.to_json('file.json', orient='split')df = pd.read_json('file.json', orient='split')print (df)   C  B  A0  a  4  71  b  5  82  c  4  93  d  5  44  e  5  25  f  4  3

Another alternative:

df.to_pickle('file')df = pd.read_pickle('file')

And next alternative is add to json columns names in list:

import jsonj = {'columns': df.columns.tolist(), 'data' : df.to_dict(orient='records')}print (j){'columns': ['C', 'B', 'A'],  'data': [{'C': 'a', 'B': 4, 'A': 7},           {'C': 'b', 'B': 5, 'A': 8},           {'C': 'c', 'B': 4, 'A': 9},           {'C': 'd', 'B': 5, 'A': 4},           {'C': 'e', 'B': 5, 'A': 2},           {'C': 'f', 'B': 4, 'A': 3}]}file = 'file.json'with open(file, 'w') as f_obj:    json.dump(j, f_obj)with open(file) as f_obj:    json_data = json.load(f_obj)df = pd.DataFrame(json_data['data'], columns=json_data['columns'])print(df)   C  B  A0  a  4  71  b  5  82  c  4  93  d  5  44  e  5  25  f  4  3