I've been tinkering with Python using Pythonista on my iPad. I decided to write a simple script that pulls song lyrics in Japanese from one website, and makes post requests to another website that basically annotates the lyrics with extra information.
When I use Python 2 and the module mechanize for the second website, everything works fine, but when I use Python 3 and requests, the resulting text is nonsense.
This is a minimal script that doesn't exhibit the issue:
#!/usr/bin/env python2
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import requests
import mechanize
def main():
# Get lyrics from first website (lyrical-nonsense.com)
url = 'https://www.lyrical-nonsense.com/lyrics/bump-of-chicken/hello-world/'
html_raw_lyrics = BeautifulSoup(requests.get(url).text, "html5lib")
raw_lyrics = html_raw_lyrics.find("div", id="Lyrics").get_text()
# Use second website to anotate lyrics with fugigana
browser = mechanize.Browser()
browser.open('http://furigana.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi')
browser.select_form(nr=0)
browser.form['text'] = raw_lyrics
request = browser.submit()
# My actual script does more stuff at this point, but this snippet doesn't need it
annotated_lyrics = BeautifulSoup(request.read().decode('utf-8'), "html5lib").find("body").get_text()
print annotated_lyrics
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
The truncated output is:
扉(とびら)開(ひら)けば捻(ねじ)れた昼(ひる)の夜(よる)昨日(きのう)どうやって帰(かえ)った体(からだ)だけが確(たし)かおはよう これからまた迷子(まいご)の続(つづ)き見慣(みな)れた知(し)らない景色(けしき)の中(なか)でもう駄目(だめ)って思(おも)ってから わりと何(なん)だかやれている死(し)にきらないくらいに丈夫(じょうぶ)何(なに)かちょっと恥(は)ずかしいやるべきことは忘(わす)れていても解(わか)るそうしないと とても苦(くる)しいから顔(かお)を上(あ)げて黒(くろ)い目(め)の人(にん)君(くん)が見(み)たから光(ひかり)は生(う)まれた選(えら)んだ色(しょく)で塗(ぬ)った世界(せかい)に [...]
This is a minimal script that exhibits the issue:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import requests
def main():
# Get lyrics from first website (lyrical-nonsense.com)
url = 'https://www.lyrical-nonsense.com/lyrics/bump-of-chicken/hello-world/'
html_raw_lyrics = BeautifulSoup(requests.get(url).text, "html5lib")
raw_lyrics = html_raw_lyrics.find("div", id="Lyrics").get_text()
# Use second website to anotate lyrics with fugigana
url = 'http://furigana.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi'
data = {'text': raw_lyrics, 'state': 'output'}
html_annotated_lyrics = BeautifulSoup(requests.post(url, data=data).text, "html5lib")
annotated_lyrics = html_annotated_lyrics.find("body").get_text()
print(annotated_lyrics)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
whose truncated output is:
IQp{_<n(åiFcf0c_S`QLºKJoFSK~_÷PnMc_åjDorn-gFÄîcfcfKhU`KfD{kMjDOD+UKacheZKWDyMSho،fDfã]FWjDhhfæWDKTRfÒDînºL_KIo~_x`rgWc_Lkò~fxyjD·nsoiS`FTê`QLÒüíüLn [...]
It's worth noting that if I just try to get the HTML of the second request, like so:
# Use second website to anotate lyrics with fugigana
url = 'http://furigana.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi'
data = {'text': raw_lyrics, 'state': 'output'}
annotated_lyrics = requests.post(url, data=data).content.decode('utf-8')
A embedded null character error occurs when printing annotated_lyrics. This issue can be circumvented by passing truncated lyrics to the post requests. In the current example, only one character can be passed.
However, with
url = 'https://www.lyrical-nonsense.com/lyrics/aimer/brave-shine/'
I can pass up to 51 characters, like so:
data = {'text': raw_lyrics[0:51], 'state': 'output'}
before triggering the embedded null character error.
I've tried using urllib instead of requests, decoding and encoding to utf-8 the resulting HTML of the post request, or the data passed as an argument to this request. I've also checked that the encoding of the website is utf-8, which matches the encoding of the post requests:
r = requests.post(url, data=data)
print(r.encoding)
prints utf-8.
I think the problem has to do with how Python 3 is more strict in how it treats strings vs bytes, but I've been unable to pinpoint the exact cause.
While I'd appreciate a working code sample in Python 3, I'm more interested in what exactly I'm doing wrong, in what is the code doing that results in failure.
