Working with Urdu and Arabic names in Python

Question

I'm trying to work with Urdu text but am unable to get the right output.

name = '\xd9\x87\xd9\x84\xd9\x84\xd8\xa7 \xd8\xa7\xd9\x85\xd8\xa7\xd9\x86'
print name

OUTPUT
هللا امان

DESIRED OUTPUT
امان اللہ

please advise.

Possible duplicate of [Python Right-to-Left and Left-to-Right printed nicely](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42556063/python-right-to-left-and-left-to-right-printed-nicely) — Mateen Ulhaq, Jun 27 '18 at 06:07
You need to adjust the font and text direction of your terminal or wherever the output is being displayed. — Burhan Khalid, Jun 27 '18 at 06:08
@MateenUlhaq do you mean something like this: '\u202B\xd9\x87\xd9\x84\xd9\x84\xd8\xa7\u202C \u202B\xd8\xa7\xd9\x85\xd8\xa7\xd9\x86\u202C' — Hisham Sajid, Jun 27 '18 at 06:11

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 27 '18 at 07:58

I see two main issues with your snippet.

The first is that in Arabic, there are special code points for entire words, and the word you are trying to print اللہ is called ARABIC LIGATURE ALLAH ISOLATED FORM, which is 0xFDF2 or 0xEF 0xB7 0xB2.

If you write it isolated (each individual character), you will not get the correct representation.

Second, your font in your terminal (or whatever application is being used to render the text) should support the glyph, and you should ensure that the text direction is switched to right-to-left.

Here is an example from the online Python shell:

>>> print(u"\uFDF2")
ﷲ

Since this shell is not configured for right to left you can see that it is printing it left to right.

Working with Urdu and Arabic names in Python

1 Answers1