How to use Unicode characters in a python string

Question

I'd like to be able to use unicode in my python string. For instance I have an icon:

icon = '▲'
print icon

which should create icon = '▲'

but instead it literally returns it in string form: ▲

How can I make this string recognize unicode?

Thank you for your help in advance.

Answer 1

You can use string escape sequences, as documented in the “string and bytes literals” section of the language reference. For Python 3 this would work simply like this:

>>> icon = '\u25b2'
>>> print(icon)
▲

In Python 2 this only works within unicode strings. Unicode strings have a u prefix before the quotation mark:

>>> icon = u'\u25b2'
>>> print icon
▲

This is not necessary in Python 3 as all strings in Python 3 are unicode strings.

Answer 2

Python 3:

>>> print('\N{BLACK UP-POINTING TRIANGLE}')
▲

Python 2:

>>> print u'\N{BLACK UP-POINTING TRIANGLE}'
▲

Answer 3

Use \u escaping in a unicode string literal:

>>> print u"\u25B2".encode("utf-8")
▲

Alternatively, if you want to use HTML entities, you can use this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2087433/71522

Answer 4

>>> icon = '\u25B2'
>>> print(icon)
▲

Also refer to: Python unicode character codes?