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.