What does the u symbol mean in front of string values

Question

Yes in short i would like to know why am I seeing a u in front of my keys and values   I am rendering a form  The form has  check-box for the particular label and one text field for the ip address  I am creating a dictionary with keys being the label which are hardcoded in the list key and values for the dictionary are taken from the form input  list value   The dictionary is created but it is preceded by u for some values  here is the sample output for the dictionary    u 1     broadcast   u on    arp        webserver        ipaddr   u     dns          can someone please explain what I am doing wrong  I am not getting the error when i simulate similar method in pyscripter  Any suggestions to improve the code are welcome  Thank you     usr bin env python  import webapp2 import itertools import cgi  form           lt form method  post  gt      FIREWALL       lt br gt  lt br gt       lt select name  profiles  gt           lt option value  1  gt profile 1 lt  option gt           lt option value  2  gt profile 2 lt  option gt           lt option value  3  gt profile 3 lt  option gt       lt  select gt       lt br gt  lt br gt      Check the box to implement the particular policy      lt br gt  lt br gt        lt label gt  Allow Broadcast          lt input type  checkbox  name  broadcast  gt       lt  label gt       lt br gt  lt br gt        lt label gt  Allow ARP          lt input type  checkbox  name  arp  gt       lt  label gt  lt br gt  lt br gt        lt label gt  Allow Web traffic from external address to internal webserver          lt input type  checkbox  name  webserver  gt       lt  label gt  lt br gt  lt br gt        lt label gt  Allow DNS          lt input type  checkbox  name  dns  gt       lt  label gt  lt br gt  lt br gt        lt label gt  Block particular Internet Protocol  address          lt input type  text  name  ipaddr  gt       lt  label gt  lt br gt  lt br gt        lt input type  submit  gt          lt  form gt      dictionarymain     class MainHandler webapp2 RequestHandler         def get self           self response out write form       def post self             get the parameters from the form          profile   self request get  profiles            broadcast   self request get  broadcast           arp   self request get  arp           webserver   self request get  webserver           dns  self request get  dns           ipaddr   self request get  ipaddr               Create a dictionary for the above parameters         list value    broadcast   arp   webserver   dns  ipaddr           list key    broadcast     arp     webserver     dns     ipaddr              self response headers  Content-Type     text plain           self response out write profile             map two list to a dictionary using itertools         adict   dict zip list key list value           self response headers  Content-Type     text plain          self response out write adict           if profile not in dictionarymain              dictionarymain profile              dictionarymain profile   adict           self response headers  Content-Type     text plain           self response out write dictionarymain           def escape html s               return cgi escape s  quote  True     app   webapp2 WSGIApplication        MainHandler                                  debug True

User · Answer

This is a feature  not a bug   See http   docs python org howto unicode html  specifically the  unicode type  section

User · Answer

The  u  in front of the string values means the string is a Unicode string  Unicode is a way to represent more characters than normal ASCII can manage  The fact that you re seeing the u means you re on Python 2 - strings are Unicode by default on Python 3  but on Python 2  the u in front distinguishes Unicode strings  The rest of this answer will focus on Python 2  You can create a Unicode string multiple ways   gt  gt  gt  u foo  u foo   gt  gt  gt  unicode  foo     Python 2 only u foo   But the real reason is to represent something like this  translation here    gt  gt  gt  val   u                                gt  gt  gt  val u  u041e u0437 u043d u0430 u043a u043e u043c u044c u0442 u0435 u0441 u044c  u0441  u0434 u043e u043a u0443 u043c u0435 u043d u0442 u0430 u0446 u0438 u0435 u0439   gt  gt  gt  print val                               For the most part  Unicode and non-Unicode strings are interoperable on Python 2  There are other symbols you will see  such as the  quot raw quot  symbol r for telling a string not to interpret backslashes  This is extremely useful for writing regular expressions   gt  gt  gt   foo  quot    foo quot    gt  gt  gt  r foo  quot    foo   quot    Unicode and non-Unicode strings can be equal on Python 2   gt  gt  gt  bird1   unicode  unladen swallow    gt  gt  gt  bird2    unladen swallow   gt  gt  gt  bird1    bird2 True  but not on Python 3   gt  gt  gt  x   u asdf    Python 3  gt  gt  gt  y   b asdf    b indicates bytestring  gt  gt  gt  x    y False

[python] What does the 'u' symbol mean in front of string values?

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