title: simplejson.scanner.JSONDecodeError: Invalid \X escape sequence u's': line 1 column 468 (char 467)
body: <p>I am having a problem while making an HTTP request to a REST api where my JSON formatted response isn't properly formed. There are escape sequences in the JSON which are interpreted correctly, but then there is a specific sentence which has the words "inner\spiritual", making the JSON decoder believe the "\s" is an escape sequence, when it is not meant to be. </p>
  
  <p>Searching through the stackoverflow articles, I could not find a solution that fit my precise use case, but I figured out a good hack using the exceptions and indexing the JSON string and doing simple replacement. I thought it was worth a share since it might help someone in a similar situation. Happy hacking :)</p>
  
  <p><strong>Full Code:</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>import requests
  import os
  import json
  
  base_url = 'http://www.omdbapi.com/'
  tv_series = {}
  films = {}
  
  #for i in range(1, 9999999):
  #imdb_id = 'tt' + str(i).zfill(7)
  imdb_id = 'tt0120690'
  print imdb_id
  
  
  
  payload = {
              'i':imdb_id,
              'plot':'full',
              'r':'json'      
  }
  response = requests.get(base_url, params=payload)
  if response.status_code == 200:     
      result = None
      result = response.json()
  
      if result != None:
          if result['Response'] != 'False':
              if result['Type'] == 'movie':
                  films[result['Title']] = result
              elif result['Type'] == 'series':
                  tv_series[result['Title']] = result
              else:
                  print '[ERROR] Type:', result['Type']
  with open('tv_series.json', 'w') as tv_series_outfile:
      json.dump(tv_series, tv_series_outfile)
  
  with open('films.json', 'w') as films_outfile:
      json.dump(films, films_outfile)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>Error:</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "import_imdb.py", line 41, in &lt;module&gt;
      result = response.json()
    File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\requests\models.py", line 797, in json
      return json.loads(self.text, **kwargs)
    File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\simplejson\__init__.py", line 516, in loads
      return _default_decoder.decode(s)
    File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\simplejson\decoder.py", line 370, in decode
      obj, end = self.raw_decode(s)
    File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\simplejson\decoder.py", line 400, in raw_decode
      return self.scan_once(s, idx=_w(s, idx).end())
    File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\simplejson\scanner.py", line 127, in scan_once
      return _scan_once(string, idx)
    File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\simplejson\scanner.py", line 93, in _scan_once
      _scan_once, object_hook, object_pairs_hook, memo)
    File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\simplejson\decoder.py", line 194, in JSONObject
      value, end = scan_once(s, end)
    File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\simplejson\scanner.py", line 90, in _scan_once
      return parse_string(string, idx + 1, encoding, strict)
    File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\simplejson\decoder.py", line 99, in py_scanstring
      raise JSONDecodeError(msg, s, end)
  simplejson.scanner.JSONDecodeError: Invalid \X escape sequence u's': line 1 column 468 (char 467)
  </code></pre>