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

Check out this answer to a similar question like this which states that

The u- prefix just means that you have a Unicode string. When you really use the string, it won't appear in your data. Don't be thrown by the printed output.

For example, try this:

print mail_accounts[0]["i"]

You won't see a u.