How do I use Python's pprint module to pretty print out dictionary key value pairs nested with in a list?

Question

I would like to pretty print out each key value pair from dictionaries which are nested in a list. So here is what I am working with:

[{"updated_at":"2011/09/26 22:39:18 +0000","url":"http://diveintopython.net/http_web_services/redirects.html","annotations":[],"user":"name","shared":"yes","tags":"python,handler,opener,urllib2","readlater":"no","created_at":"2011/09/26 22:39:18 +0000","title":"11.7.\xc2\xa0Handling redirects","comments":[],"desc":""},{"updated_at":"2011/09/26 11:09:07 +0000","url":"http://www.polimex.net/sklep/index.php?page=Category&catid=7","annotations":[],"user":"name","shared":"yes","tags":"plastic,snap,buttons,clothing","readlater":"no","created_at":"2011/09/26 11:05:48 +0000","title":"Polimex - Plastic\xc2\xa0accessories","comments":[],"desc":""}]

When I do

from pprint import pprint

data = [{"updated_at":"2011/09/26 22:39:18 +0000","url":"http://diveintopython.net/http_web_services/redirects.html","annotations":[],"user":"name","shared":"yes","tags":"python,handler,opener,urllib2","readlater":"no","created_at":"2011/09/26 22:39:18 +0000","title":"11.7.\xc2\xa0Handling redirects","comments":[],"desc":""},{"updated_at":"2011/09/26 11:09:07 +0000","url":"http://www.polimex.net/sklep/index.php?page=Category&catid=7","annotations":[],"user":"name","shared":"yes","tags":"plastic,snap,buttons,clothing","readlater":"no","created_at":"2011/09/26 11:05:48 +0000","title":"Polimex - Plastic\xc2\xa0accessories","comments":[],"desc":""}]

pprint(data)

the result I get is the same as the original list but in a string

'[{"updated_at":"2011/09/26 22:39:18 +0000","url":"http://diveintopython.net/http_web_services/redirects.html","annotations":[],"user":"name","shared":"yes","tags":"python,handler,opener,urllib2","readlater":"no","created_at":"2011/09/26 22:39:18 +0000","title":"11.7.\xc2\xa0Handling redirects","comments":[],"desc":""},{"updated_at":"2011/09/26 11:09:07 +0000","url":"http://www.polimex.net/sklep/index.php?page=Category&catid=7","annotations":[],"user":"name","shared":"yes","tags":"plastic,snap,buttons,clothing","readlater":"no","created_at":"2011/09/26 11:05:48 +0000","title":"Polimex - Plastic\xc2\xa0accessories","comments":[],"desc":""}]'

How do I make it pretty print the data to look something like this?

[
    {
     "updated_at":"2011/09/26 22:39:18 +0000",
     "url":"http://diveintopython.net/http_web_services/redirects.html",
     "annotations":[],
     "user":"name",
     "shared":"yes",
     "tags":"python,handler,opener,urllib2",
     "readlater":"no",
     "created_at":"2011/09/26 22:39:18 +0000",
     "title":"11.7.\xc2\xa0Handling redirects",
     "comments":[],
     "desc":""
     },
     {
     "updated_at":"2011/09/26 11:09:07 +0000",
     "url":"http://www.polimex.net/sklep/index.php?page=Category&catid=7",
     "annotations":[],
     "user":"name",
     "shared":"yes",
     "tags":"plastic,snap,buttons,clothing",
     "readlater":"no",
     "created_at":"2011/09/26 11:05:48 +0000", 
     "title":"Polimex - Plastic\xc2\xa0accessories", 
     "comments":[],"desc":"" 
     }
]

Answer 1

One possibility comes to mind. Are you supplying a JSON string to pprint? If so, you should first decode it:

pprint(json.loads(data))