How to get string objects instead of Unicode from JSON?

Question

I\'m using Python 2 to parse JSON from ASCII encoded text files.

When loading these files with either json or simplejson, all my

Answer 1

This is late to the game, but I built this recursive caster. It works for my needs and I think it's relatively complete. It may help you.

def _parseJSON(self, obj):
    newobj = {}

    for key, value in obj.iteritems():
        key = str(key)

        if isinstance(value, dict):
            newobj[key] = self._parseJSON(value)
        elif isinstance(value, list):
            if key not in newobj:
                newobj[key] = []
                for i in value:
                    newobj[key].append(self._parseJSON(i))
        elif isinstance(value, unicode):
            val = str(value)
            if val.isdigit():
                val = int(val)
            else:
                try:
                    val = float(val)
                except ValueError:
                    val = str(val)
            newobj[key] = val

    return newobj

Just pass it a JSON object like so:

obj = json.loads(content, parse_float=float, parse_int=int)
obj = _parseJSON(obj)

I have it as a private member of a class, but you can repurpose the method as you see fit.