sqlalchemy object to dict

alchemy_to_dict.py

from sqlalchemy import inspect

def alchemy_to_dict(obj):
    # an SQLAlchemy class
    fields = {}
    for field in [c.key for c in inspect(obj).mapper.column_attrs]:
        data = obj.__getattribute__(field)
        try:
            if isinstance(data, datetime):
                data = data.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
            json.dumps(data)  # this will fail on non-encodable values, like other classes
            fields[field] = data
        except TypeError:
            fields[field] = None
    # a json-encodable dict
    return fields