Why are these two strings not equal in Python?

Viewed 137

I have a simple Python code sample

import json
hello = json.dumps("hello")
print(type(hello))

if hello == "hello":
    print("They are equal")
else:
    print("They are not equal")

This is evaluating to "They are not equal". I don't understand why these values are not equal.

I'm re-familiarizing myself with Python but I read that this "==" can be used as an operator to compare strings in Python. I also printed the type of hello which evaluates to "str"

Can someone clarify this?

3 Answers

The behavior becomes much more clear once you print out the result from json.dumps():

print("hello", len("hello"))
print(hello, len(hello))

This outputs:

hello 5
"hello" 7

json.dumps() adds extra quotation marks -- you can see that the lengths of the two strings aren't the same. This is why your check fails.

json.dumps is used to convert dictonaries to json strings. In other words, it interprets the import and creates the equivalent of it as a json. What that means is, that puting a single string in will result in it being transformed to the json equivalent of a single string.

hello = json.dumps("hello")
print(hello)
 => "hello"

In the json-format, strings are in quotes, which is why json.dumps() puts it in quotes.

print(json.dumps('hello'))

output -> "hello"

print('hello')

output -> hello

enter image description here

Related