about coding

[cantabile]

Hi, being a newbie in Python, I'm a bit lost with the '-*- coding : -*-'
directive.

I'm using an accented characters language. Some of them are correctly
displayed while one doesn't. I've written :
-*- coding: utf-8 -*-

Is this wrong ?

Where can I find a pratical explanation about these encodings ?

Thanks.

[Robert Kern]

Re: about coding

cantabile wrote:[color=blue]
> Hi, being a newbie in Python, I'm a bit lost with the '-*- coding : -*-'
> directive.
>
> I'm using an accented characters language. Some of them are correctly
> displayed while one doesn't. I've written :
> -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
>
> Is this wrong ?[/color]

It depends. Are those characters encoded as UTF-8? Or, more likely, are
they encoded as ISO-8859-1?
[color=blue]
> Where can I find a pratical explanation about these encodings ?[/color]

http://www.amk.ca/python/howto/unicode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html

--
Robert Kern
rkern@ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter

[Benjamin Niemann]

Re: about coding

cantabile wrote:
[color=blue]
> Hi, being a newbie in Python, I'm a bit lost with the '-*- coding : -*-'
> directive.
>
> I'm using an accented characters language. Some of them are correctly
> displayed while one doesn't. I've written :
> -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
>
> Is this wrong ?
>
> Where can I find a pratical explanation about these encodings ?[/color]

The coding line tell the interpreter to assume that the file is encoded as
utf-8. It's the job of the editor that you are using, to actually encode
the file as utf-8.
The coding directive uses a format that is automatically recognized by the
emacs editor. If you are using another editor, you'll have to search its
menus for the proper way to save files as utf-8.


--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://www.odahoda.de/

[John Machin]

Re: about coding

Benjamin Niemann wrote:[color=blue]
> cantabile wrote:
>
>[color=green]
>>Hi, being a newbie in Python, I'm a bit lost with the '-*- coding : -*-'
>>directive.
>>
>>I'm using an accented characters language. Some of them are correctly
>>displayed while one doesn't. I've written :
>>-*- coding: utf-8 -*-
>>
>>Is this wrong ?
>>
>>Where can I find a pratical explanation about these encodings ?[/color]
>
>
> The coding line tell the interpreter to assume that the file is encoded as
> utf-8. It's the job of the editor that you are using, to actually encode
> the file as utf-8.
> The coding directive uses a format that is automatically recognized by the
> emacs editor. If you are using another editor, you'll have to search its
> menus for the proper way to save files as utf-8.
>
>[/color]

or possibly the OP needs to nut out what is the encoding he already has,
and tell Python what that encoding is.

[cantabile]

Re: about coding

Robert Kern a écrit :
[color=blue]
> It depends. Are those characters encoded as UTF-8? Or, more likely, are
> they encoded as ISO-8859-1?
>[color=green]
>> Where can I find a pratical explanation about these encodings ?[/color]
>
>
> http://www.amk.ca/python/howto/unicode
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding
> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html
>[/color]

I'm using emacs. I guess this is utf-8 encoded...
Thanks for the links :)

[Paul Watson]

Re: about coding

cantabile wrote:[color=blue]
> Hi, being a newbie in Python, I'm a bit lost with the '-*- coding : -*-'
> directive.
>
> I'm using an accented characters language. Some of them are correctly
> displayed while one doesn't. I've written :
> -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
>
> Is this wrong ?
>
> Where can I find a pratical explanation about these encodings ?
>
> Thanks.[/color]

You must know the encoding produced by your editor.

If you want to experiment, you could save a small file and run

od -Ax -tx1 thefile.py

to see exactly what codepoints appear. Compare those with the
charts at http://www.unicode.org/ and you can probably surmize
a good guess.

[John Machin]

Re: about coding

Paul Watson wrote:[color=blue]
> cantabile wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Hi, being a newbie in Python, I'm a bit lost with the '-*- coding :
>> -*-' directive.
>>
>> I'm using an accented characters language. Some of them are correctly
>> displayed while one doesn't. I've written :
>> -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
>>
>> Is this wrong ?
>>
>> Where can I find a pratical explanation about these encodings ?
>>
>> Thanks.[/color]
>
>
> You must know the encoding produced by your editor.
>
> If you want to experiment, you could save a small file and run
>
> od -Ax -tx1 thefile.py
>
> to see exactly what codepoints appear. Compare those with the
> charts at http://www.unicode.org/ and you can probably surmize
> a good guess.[/color]

Perhaps faster, and certainly available on all platforms (unlike "od"):

Fire up Idle, then do this:
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> import sys
>>> sys.stdout.enco ding[/color][/color][/color]
'cp1252'[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>[/color][/color][/color]

Why Idle, and not from the command line? Well because if you are on
Windows, you'll get a different answer, which is very unlikely to be the
one you want [unless you are using a legacy editor].

C:\junk>python
Python 2.4.1 (#65, Mar 30 2005, 09:13:57) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on
win32
Type "help", "copyright" , "credits" or "license" for more information.[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> import sys
>>> sys.stdout.enco ding[/color][/color][/color]
'cp850'[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>[/color][/color][/color]