Python read and write 'ß' from file

Question

I have a file.txt with the input

Straße
Straße 1
Straße 2

I want to read this text from file and print it. I tried this, but it won´t work.

lmao1 = open('file.txt').read().splitlines()
lmao =random.choice(lmao1)
print str(lmao).decode('utf8')

But I get the error:

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xdf in position 5: invalid continuation byte

have you tried without `.decode('utf8')`? And yes, you can't decode strings, only encode them — dheiberg, Aug 14 '17 at 13:03
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44309044/unicodedecodeerror-utf-8-invalid-continuation-byte — chrki, Aug 14 '17 at 13:04
The type of `lmao` is `str` already. Why do you use `str` on it? — stamaimer, Aug 14 '17 at 13:17

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 14 '17 at 13:16

1

Got it. If this doesn't work try other common encodings until you find the right one. utf-8 is not the correct encoding.

print str(lmao).decode('latin-1')

answered Aug 14 '17 at 13:16

Evan

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No problem. Please mark this as the chosen answer ;) – Evan Aug 14 '17 at 13:28

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 14 '17 at 15:54

If on Windows, the file is likely encoded in cp1252.

Whatever the encoding, use io.open and specify the encoding. This code will work in both Python 2 and 3.

io.open will return Unicode strings. It is good practice to immediately convert to/from Unicode at the I/O boundaries of your program. In this case that means reading the file as Unicode in the first place and leaving print to determine the appropriate encoding for the terminal.

Also recommended is to switch to Python 3 where Unicode handling is greatly improved.

from __future__ import print_function
import io
import random
with io.open('file.txt',encoding='cp1252') as f:
    lines = f.read().splitlines()
line = random.choice(lines)
print(line)

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 14 '17 at 13:28

0

You're on the right track, regarding decode, the problem is only there is no way to guess the encoding of a file 100%. Try a different encoding (e.g. latin-1).

answered Aug 14 '17 at 13:28

Bastian Venthur

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score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 14 '17 at 13:09

-1

It's working fine on Python prompt and while running from python script as well.

>>> import random
>>> lmao =random.choice(lmao1)
>>> lmao =random.choice(lmao1)
>>> print str(lmao).decode('utf8')
Straße 2

The above worked on Python 2.7. May I know your python version ?

answered Aug 14 '17 at 13:09

jagatjyoti

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I use python 2.7 aswell. Can u post python script aswell, maybe i have just a mistake in it. – Dking1199 Aug 14 '17 at 13:13
`import random lmao1 = open('file.txt').read().splitlines() lmao =random.choice(lmao1) print str(lmao).decode('utf8')` – jagatjyoti Aug 14 '17 at 13:15

Python read and write 'ß' from file

4 Answers4