python: json.dumps can't handle utf-8?

Question

Below is the test program, including a Chinese character:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- import json  j = {"d":"中", "e":"a"} json = json.dumps(j, encoding="utf-8")  print json 

Below is the result, look the json.dumps convert the utf-8 to the original numbers!

{"e": "a", "d": "\u4e2d"} 

Why this is broken? Or anything I am wrong?

Answer 1

Looks like valid JSON to me. If you want json to output a string that has non-ASCII characters in it then you need to pass ensure_ascii=False and then encode manually afterward.

Answer 2

You should read json.org. The complete JSON specification is in the white box on the right.

There is nothing wrong with the generated JSON. Generators are allowed to genereate either UTF-8 strings or plain ASCII strings, where characters are escaped with the \uXXXX notation. In your case, the Python json module decided for escaping, and 中 has the escaped notation \u4e2d.

By the way: Any conforming JSON interpreter will correctly unescape this sequence again and give you back the actual character.