Converting Unicode JSON response to regular string dictionary in Python

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1

I’m working with a streaming API response in Python and having trouble with Unicode formatting. When I fetch data from the API, everything comes back with unicode prefixes like u'key' instead of regular strings.

import requests
import json

api_endpoint = 'https://api.example.com/streams/data.json?user=streamer123'

response = requests.get(api_endpoint, timeout=60)
data = response.json()
print(data)

The output shows something like:

[{u'stream_id': 12345, u'is_live': True, u'viewer_count': 1500, u'game_title': u'Popular Game Title', u'streamer_info': {u'username': u'streamer123', u'follower_count': 50000, u'stream_title': u'Epic Gaming Session'}}]

How can I convert this Unicode dictionary into a normal string dictionary that I can work with properly?

2

totally! just use python 3. the u prefixes are gone and you’ll get normal strings. makes life way easier, trust me!

3

Those unicode prefixes are just Python 2’s way of showing strings. In Python 3, JSON responses from requests come back as regular strings automatically. If you’re stuck on Python 2, use response.text instead of response.json(), then parse it with json.loads() - that’ll give you proper string objects. You could also walk through your dictionary and convert unicode objects with str(), but honestly, just upgrade to Python 3 where string handling actually makes sense.