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I'm trying to decode a twitch api answer in python. 

import urllib2
import json


url  = 'http://api.justin.tv/api/stream/list.json?channel=kungentv'

result =json.loads(urllib2.urlopen(url, timeout = 100).read().decode('utf-8'))
print result

If i run this i get this:

[{u'broadcast_part': 6, u'featured': True, u'channel_subscription': True, u'embed_count': 0, u'id': u'9602378624', u'category': u'gaming', u'title': u'5x Legend - Playing the TOP DECKS from DECK WARS to Legendary! Handlock, Miracle and Shaman. (Never played Shaman EVUR)', u'video_height': 1080, u'site_count': 0, u'embed_enabled': False, u'channel': {u'category': u'gaming', u'status': u'5x Legend - Playing the TOP DECKS from DECK WARS to Legendary! Handlock, Miracle and Shaman. (Never played Shaman EVUR)', u'views_count': 56403101, u'subcategory': None, u'language': u'en', u'title': u'kungentv', u'screen_cap_url_huge': u'http://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/previews/live_user_kungentv-630x473.jpg', u'producer': True, u'tags': None, u'subcategory_title': u'', u'category_title': u'', u'screen_cap_url_large': u'http://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/previews/live_user_kungentv-320x240.jpg', u'mature': None, u'screen_cap_url_small': u'http://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/previews/live_user_kungentv-70x53.jpg', u'screen_cap_url_medium': u'http://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/previews/live_user_kungentv-150x113.jpg', u'timezone': u'Europe/Stockholm', u'login': u'kungentv', u'channel_url': u'http://www.justin.tv/kungentv', u'id': 30383713, u'meta_game': u'Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft'}, u'up_time': u'Mon May 19 00:34:43 2014', u'meta_game': u'Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft', u'format': u'live', u'stream_type': u'live', u'channel_count': 3671, u'abuse_reported': False, u'video_width': 1920, u'geo': u'SE', u'name': u'live_user_kungentv', u'language': u'en', u'stream_count': 0, u'video_bitrate': 3665.328125, u'broadcaster': u'obs', u'channel_view_count': 0}]

How do i decode this so I can use it a normal string dictionary.

Thanks in advance!

CvR_XX
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1 Answers1

3

You don't have to decode anything; Python will encode and decode string values as needed for you.

Demo:

>>> result = [{u'broadcast_part': 6, u'featured': True, u'channel_subscription': True, u'embed_count': 0, u'id': u'9602378624', u'category': u'gaming', u'title': u'5x Legend - Playing the TOP DECKS from DECK WARS to Legendary! Handlock, Miracle and Shaman. (Never played Shaman EVUR)', u'video_height': 1080, u'site_count': 0, u'embed_enabled': False, u'channel': {u'category': u'gaming', u'status': u'5x Legend - Playing the TOP DECKS from DECK WARS to Legendary! Handlock, Miracle and Shaman. (Never played Shaman EVUR)', u'views_count': 56403101, u'subcategory': None, u'language': u'en', u'title': u'kungentv', u'screen_cap_url_huge': u'http://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/previews/live_user_kungentv-630x473.jpg', u'producer': True, u'tags': None, u'subcategory_title': u'', u'category_title': u'', u'screen_cap_url_large': u'http://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/previews/live_user_kungentv-320x240.jpg', u'mature': None, u'screen_cap_url_small': u'http://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/previews/live_user_kungentv-70x53.jpg', u'screen_cap_url_medium': u'http://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/previews/live_user_kungentv-150x113.jpg', u'timezone': u'Europe/Stockholm', u'login': u'kungentv', u'channel_url': u'http://www.justin.tv/kungentv', u'id': 30383713, u'meta_game': u'Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft'}, u'up_time': u'Mon May 19 00:34:43 2014', u'meta_game': u'Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft', u'format': u'live', u'stream_type': u'live', u'channel_count': 3671, u'abuse_reported': False, u'video_width': 1920, u'geo': u'SE', u'name': u'live_user_kungentv', u'language': u'en', u'stream_count': 0, u'video_bitrate': 3665.328125, u'broadcaster': u'obs', u'channel_view_count': 0}]
>>> result[0]['broadcast_part']
6

Python 2 uses ASCII to encode / decode between Unicode and byte string values as needed.

Generally speaking, you want your textual data as Unicode values; your program should be a Unicode sandwich. Decode your data to Unicode when you receive it, encode when you send it out again. It's just like any other serialized data; you don't work with string timestamps when you can work with datetime objects, you don't work with bytestrings if you try to make numeric calculations, you'd convert to int or float or decimal.Decimal() values instead, etc.

Martijn Pieters
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  • Amazing, did not know that. I'm curious why my post is getting down voted. What is wrong with it. – CvR_XX May 19 '14 at 10:38
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    @CvR_XX: My guess is that people have grown a little impatient about Unicode questions; there are 100s of posts asking how to remove those pesky `u''` prefixes from their strings, for example. – Martijn Pieters May 19 '14 at 10:44
  • oh yeah makes sense, the problem was that I didn't realize that the whole string was in a list. So i got error's and blamed it on Unicode. – CvR_XX May 19 '14 at 10:46