how to transform 'JSON-like' string into real JSON data

Question

I now have a string called str1 like this:

{u'price': 542.23, u'name': u'ACME', u'shares': 100}

and I want to transform it into a real JSON data.

the way that uses

data = json.loads(str1)

doesn't work. Do you have any good ideas? (with Python)

How come did you get a u prefix in your string? Did you do something like: str1 = repr(some_object) ? — UltraInstinct
– UltraInstinct, Commented Apr 27, 2017 at 7:09
@SuperSaiyan the string is like "{u'price': 542.23, u'name': u'ACME', u'shares': 100}" . The whole line is a string. In fact, this string is in a file. And I want to get a JSON data from the file. that's it. — wjxiz
– wjxiz, Commented Apr 27, 2017 at 7:14

gushitong · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-27 07:21:29Z

3

import ast

s = "{u'price': 542.23, u'name': u'ACME', u'shares': 100}"
d = ast.literal_eval(s)

> type(d)
<type 'dict'>

> d['price']
542.23

By the way, eval is not safe.

ast.literal_eval raises an exception if the input isn't a valid Python datatype, so the code won't be executed if it's not.

Use ast.literal_eval whenever you need eval. If you have Python expressions as an input that you want to evaluate, you shouldn't (have them).

answered Apr 27, 2017 at 7:21

gushitong

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1 Comment

thanks a lot! I search many json topics about this, none of them mentions ast.literal_eval .