How to Get String Objects from JSON in Python 2?

How to Retrieve String Objects from JSON in Python 2

When parsing JSON data from ASCII-encoded text files in Python 2, you may encounter the issue of string values being cast to Unicode objects. This can be problematic when working with libraries that only accept string objects.

A Lightweight Solution: PyYAML

To resolve this issue, you can leverage the PyYAML library. As JSON is a subset of YAML, PyYAML can be employed to parse JSON files and return keys and values as strings instead of Unicode objects. Here's an example:

<code class="python">import yaml

original_list = ['a', 'b']
yaml_list = yaml.safe_load(yaml.dump(original_list))

print(type(yaml_list[0]))  # Output: <class 'str'></code>

Conversion Approaches

If you cannot use PyYAML, consider using a conversion function. Mark Amery's conversion function is straightforward and effective:

<code class="python">def unicode_to_str(obj):
    if isinstance(obj, unicode):
        return obj.encode('utf-8')
    elif isinstance(obj, list):
        return [unicode_to_str(x) for x in obj]
    elif isinstance(obj, dict):
        return {unicode_to_str(k): unicode_to_str(v) for k, v in obj.items()}
    return obj</code>

Caveats:

• If the JSON file contains non-ASCII characters, it will be parsed as Unicode objects by PyYAML.
• Avoid using PyYAML's load() function, as it may lead to security concerns. Prefer safe_load() instead.
• Consider using Ruamel YAML if you need support for YAML 1.2 or low numbers.

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