How to convert a string with unicode in it to unicode using python

Question

I am importing a bunch of data from excel using xlrd on python

I get all my data in string like this : text:u'L\xc9GENDE'

I manipulate these data and I try to put them back in excel (using xlsxwriter) and when I do, I get the same block of text text:u'L\xc9GENDE' instead of LÉGENDE.

What works for me :

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: latin-1 -*-
import xlsxwriter
import sys

workbook = xlsxwriter.Workbook('hello.xlsx')
worksheet = workbook.add_worksheet()
data = u'L\xc9GENDE'
worksheet.write('A1',data)
workbook.close()

this will work, I will get LÉGENDE in the A1 cell

but if I try to manipulate a string I have already to give me u'L\xc9GENDE', it will only show L\xc9GENDE in the A1 cell

---- EDIT ---- the code I use to retrieve data from excel

from xlrd import open_workbook

def grabexcelfile():
    wb = open_workbook('leg.xls',encoding_override='latin-1')    
    log = []
    txt = ''
    for s in wb.sheets():         
        for row in range(s.nrows):              
            values = []
            for col in range(s.ncols):
                 txt = str(s.cell(row,col))
                 txt.replace('-',' ',10) 
                 log.append(txt) 
    return log            

x = grabexcelfile()
print type(x[0]),x[0]

the print gives me : text:u'L\xc9GENDE'

I have been on this for at least 5 hours. I tried encoding with latin-1 and utf-8 with no success — user3724234, Mar 03 '15 at 04:30
thank you for helping me, I did and it does not work for my problem — user3724234, Mar 03 '15 at 04:46
Show the code you are using to manipulate the string to give you `u'L\xc9GENDE'`. We can't fix the code that doesn't work if you don't show the code that doesn't work. — Mark Tolonen, Mar 04 '15 at 02:41

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

0

Try this.

import unicodedata
data = u'L\xc9GENDE'
unicodedata.normalize('NFKD',data).encode('ascii','ignore')

You can refer here for more -> Convert a Unicode string to a string in Python (containing extra symbols)

edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

Community

1
1

answered Mar 03 '15 at 04:32

Ankit Sachdeva

179
1
9

1

That seems good if I have access to the string 'LÉGENDE' in python but when I import from excel I only have 'L\xc9GENDE', I went and checked the documentation on the website but I couldnt find anything to help me there. thank you – user3724234 Mar 03 '15 at 04:53

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 07 '15 at 15:06

Instead of trying to manipulate the text:u'L\xc9GENDE' , I instead changed the type of var excel was given me with this :

from xlrd import open_workbook

def grabexcelfile():
    wb = open_workbook('leg.xls',encoding_override='latin-1')    
    log = []
    txt = ''
    for s in wb.sheets():         
        for row in range(s.nrows):              
            values = []
            for col in range(s.ncols):
                 #next line is changed
                 txt = sheet.cell(row,col).value
                 txt.replace('-',' ',10) 
                 log.append(txt) 
    return log            

x = grabexcelfile()
print type(x[0]),x[0]

How to convert a string with unicode in it to unicode using python

2 Answers2