Not capable to splitlines from a file (python3)

Question

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So I'm doing what I always do when I read the file: code:

f= open(filename,'r')
t= f.read().splitlines()
print(t)

but I'm getting a UnicodeDecodeError I don't know why. the error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "try.py", line 21, in <module>
    t= f.read().splitlines()
  File "/Users/jamilaldani/miniconda3/lib/python3.6/codecs.py", line 321, in decode
    (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position 307: invalid start byte

how do i add a snippet of the input? sorry for the dumb question — jamil Al Dani, Nov 23 '17 at 16:10
The file is too big it consists of elements from the periodic table, but the problem isn't from the file I'm trying to read because yesterday it worked fine but today I don't know why it stopped working. — jamil Al Dani, Nov 23 '17 at 16:34
use "file" command on your text file and see what encoding it reports — nicecatch, Nov 23 '17 at 16:59
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position 307: invalid start byte Jamils-MacBook-Air:downloads jamilaldani$ python try.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "try.py", line 23, in f=j.read() File "/Users/jamilaldani/miniconda3/lib/python3.6/codecs.py", line 321, in decode (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final) UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position 307: invalid start byte — jamil Al Dani, Nov 23 '17 at 17:04

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 24 '17 at 04:12

As described in a few places on this site, and AndreaConte's comment this is likely to be a file encoded in a different encoding (ie not UTF-8)

This answer may help: https://stackoverflow.com/a/19706723/70131, as may this one if you're willing to lose some data: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12468274/70131

Not capable to splitlines from a file (python3)

1 Answers1