import json import sys src = sys.argv[1] dst = sys.argv[2] with open(src, encoding='utf-8') as f: rows = json.load(f) lines = [] for r in sorted(rows, key=lambda x: x.get('dates', '')): lines.append('%-14s %-70s %s' % (r['id'], r.get('title', '')[:70], r.get('dates', '')[:38])) with open(dst, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f: f.write('\n'.join(lines)) print('wrote', len(lines))