Fix Python – Python: json.loads returns items prefixing with ‘u’

Question 1

I’ll be receiving a JSON encoded string from Objective-C, and I am decoding a dummy string (for now) like the code below. My output comes out with character ‘u’ prefixing each item:

[{u'i': u'imap.gmail.com', u'p': u'aaaa'}, {u'i': u'333imap.com', u'p': u'bbbb'}...

How is JSON adding this Unicode character? What’s the best way to remove it?

mail_accounts = []
da = {}
try:
    s = '[{"i":"imap.gmail.com","p":"aaaa"},{"i":"imap.aol.com","p":"bbbb"},{"i":"333imap.com","p":"ccccc"},{"i":"444ap.gmail.com","p":"ddddd"},{"i":"555imap.gmail.com","p":"eee"}]'
    jdata = json.loads(s)
    for d in jdata:
        for key, value in d.iteritems():
            if key not in da:
                da[key] = value
            else:
                da = {}
                da[key] = value
        mail_accounts.append(da)
except Exception, err:
    sys.stderr.write('Exception Error: %s' % str(err))

print mail_accounts

Question 2

The u- prefix just means that you have a Unicode string. When you really use the string, it won’t appear in your data. Don’t be thrown by the printed output.

For example, try this:

print mail_accounts[0]["i"]

You won’t see a u.

Question

Answer