I’m trying to extract viewer names from a streaming service API and loop through them individually. Right now I can get the data but I’m having trouble processing it properly.
Here’s what I’m working with:
response = urllib2.urlopen('http://api.example-stream.com/channels/mychannel/users')
data = json.load(response)
print(data['users']['active_viewers'])
This gives me something like:
[u'player456', u'streamfan789']
But I want to be able to loop through each username separately like this:
for username in viewer_list:
print username
What’s the best way to handle this kind of response so I can iterate over individual usernames instead of getting the whole list at once?
You’re almost there! The problem is just how you’re accessing the data structure. Since data['users']['active_viewers'] gives you a list of usernames, you can loop through it directly.
Try this:
response = urllib2.urlopen('http://api.example-stream.com/channels/mychannel/users')
data = json.load(response)
viewer_list = data['users']['active_viewers']
for username in viewer_list:
print username
data['users']['active_viewers'] is already a Python list, even with those u'' prefixes showing up. That’s just Python 2 displaying unicode objects - doesn’t mess with iteration at all. You can loop through it like any other list. I’ve done this with tons of APIs and this simple approach works great for pulling user data from JSON.
Your code works, but automation would make this way more robust.
Skip the manual scripts that break when APIs change. Set up an automated workflow for the entire pipeline. I’ve built systems like this that pull streaming data, process user lists, and trigger actions based on viewer activity.
Streaming APIs suck - they go down, change formats, or hit rate limits. Manual scripts fail silently and you miss data.
Automation platforms monitor the API, retry failed requests, handle different response formats, and store processed usernames in databases or send them to other services. You get error notifications when things break instead of finding out weeks later.
I built one workflow that pulls viewer data every 5 minutes, processes usernames, checks against a subscriber database, and sends welcome messages to new viewers. Zero code changes needed.
The processed data can trigger other stuff too - updating analytics dashboards or sending alerts when viewer count hits certain thresholds.
Your current approach is fine for testing, but automation scales better and handles edge cases you haven’t considered.
Those unicode prefixes are normal in Python 2 - they won’t mess up your loop. You can iterate through your data structure as-is. I’d definitely add error handling though. Streaming APIs are flaky. Wrap everything in try-except to catch network timeouts and missing keys. Also, check if ‘active_viewers’ exists before looping - it might be empty during slow hours. Streaming APIs love changing their response structure based on channel status. I always validate the structure first - saves tons of debugging headaches.
just assign the list directly: users = data['users']['active_viewers'] then loop through it. dont overthink this - the u prefix doesnt matter for iteration. works fine in python 2. you might want to add .strip() on usernames tho since some apis add whitespace.
Had the same problem with Twitch’s API a few years ago. That data structure looks fine for iteration - just assign it to a variable first. Your data['users']['active_viewers'] returns a proper Python list (ignore those unicode markers). Learned this the hard way: always check the response status before parsing. Streaming APIs love returning different structures when channels are offline or private. Quick fix - verify the ‘users’ key exists and ‘active_viewers’ isn’t None before you loop. Heads up: viewer lists get huge during peak hours. I’ve hit memory issues with thousands of usernames in one response. If you’re scaling this, process usernames in batches instead of loading everything at once. Your current approach works fine though once you store that list in a variable.
Been working with streaming APIs for a while and everyone’s missing something important. Your iteration code looks right, but streaming platforms paginate user lists when you’ve got 100-200+ active viewers. Check your API response for pagination stuff like ‘next_page’ or ‘cursor’ fields. Most services don’t dump all viewers in one call during busy times. Found this out the hard way when my viewer processing died during peak hours - I was only getting the first page. You’ll need multiple API calls and concat the username lists before looping. Also, some streaming APIs return viewer data with extra metadata per user, not just usernames, so your data structure might change as you scale.