How to make Python 2.x Unicode strings not print as u'string'?

Question

I'm currently testing a webservice that returns large amounts of JSON data in the form of dictionaries. The keys and values for those dictionaries are all unicode strings, and thus they print like

{u'key1':u'value', u'key2':u'value2'}

when printed to the screen in the interactive interpreter.

Now imagine that this is a 3-level deep, 40-element dictionary. All those u characters clutter up the display, making it hard to figure out, at a glance, what the real data actually is. Even when using pprint.

Is there any way to tell the interpreter that I don't care about the difference between normal strings and unicode strings? I don't need or want the u.

The only thing I've found that might have helped was the PYTHONIOENCODING environment variable. Unfortunately, setting it to 'ascii' or 'latin-1' doesn't make those u's go away.

I'm using Python 2.6, and I use either the regular python interpreter, or iPython.

Possible duplicate: stackoverflow.com/questions/761361/…

Justin ᚅᚔᚈᚄᚒᚔ
– Justin ᚅᚔᚈᚄᚒᚔ

2011-06-24 22:29:09 +00:00
Commented Jun 24, 2011 at 22:29 — Justin ᚅᚔᚈᚄᚒᚔ
– Justin ᚅᚔᚈᚄᚒᚔ, Commented Jun 24, 2011 at 22:29

SingleNegationElimination · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-28 15:09:11Z

19

if it's json you want, just print json:

>>> import json >>> print json.dumps({u'key1':u'value', u'key2':u'value2'}, indent=4) { "key2": "value2", "key1": "value" }

edited Oct 28, 2014 at 15:09

answered Jun 25, 2011 at 0:37

SingleNegationElimination

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2 Comments

coredumperror Over a year ago

Hmmm, that could work. Once I get back to the office I'll try that out. Thanks for the tip.

coredumperror Over a year ago

Ok, after trying this out, it's perfect! It's basically Santiago's idea from the other answer, with json.dumps() being the "function to print the dictionary".

salezica · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-24 22:29:15Z

0

Why don't you create your own function to print the dictionary? Python's default format is OK for fast, easy debugging, but absolutely inapproapiate for a 3-level deep, 40-element dictionary.

answered Jun 24, 2011 at 22:29

salezica

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2 Comments

coredumperror Over a year ago

Hmm, that could work, but it'd be more effort than this problem is really worth. I was hoping for something like a command-line switch to the interpreter. I'm already using pprint, which does all the formatting work to make these deep dictionaries somewhat readable, and I'd rather not re-invent the wheel.

salezica Over a year ago

well, you could wrap your strings and override their repr method.

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