1

I have a variable which stores the string "u05e2" (The value is constantly changing because I set it within a loop). I want to print the Hebrew letter with that Unicode value. I tried the following but it didn't work:

>>> a = 'u05e2'
>>> print(u'\{}'.format(a))

I got \u05e2 instead of ע(In this case).

I also tried to do:

>>> a = 'u05e2'
>>> b = '\\' + a
>>> print(u'{}'.format(b))

Neither one worked. How can I fix this?

Thanks in advance!

Mark Tolonen
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Omer Shalev
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  • The solution suggested there worked for me.Thanks! – Omer Shalev Dec 15 '18 at 17:37
  • That SO answer points to a solution for Python 2.7 where explicit unicode conversion was required. In Python 3, this is built into str() and should work out of the box. – amanb Dec 15 '18 at 20:24

3 Answers3

2

This seems like an X-Y Problem. If you want the Unicode character for a code point, use an integer variable and the function chr (or unichr on Python 2) instead of trying to format an escape code:

>>> for a in range(0x5e0,0x5eb):
...  print(hex(a),chr(a))
...
0x5e0 נ
0x5e1 ס
0x5e2 ע
0x5e3 ף
0x5e4 פ
0x5e5 ץ
0x5e6 צ
0x5e7 ק
0x5e8 ר
0x5e9 ש
0x5ea ת
Mark Tolonen
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0

All you need is a \ before u05e2. To print a Unicode character, you must provide a unicode format string. 

a = '\u05e2'
print(u'{}'.format(a))

#Output
ע

When you try the other approach by printing the \ within the print() function, Python first escapes the \ and does not show the desired result.

a = 'u05e2'
print(u'\{}'.format(a))

#Output
\u05e2

A way to verify the validity of Unicode format strings is using the ord() built-in function in the Python standard library. This returns the Unicode code point(an integer) of the character passed to it. This function only expects either a Unicode character or a string representing a Unicode character.

a = '\u05e2'
print(ord(a)) #1506, the Unicode code point for the Unicode string stored in a

To print the Unicode character for the above Unicode code value(1506), use the character type formatting with c. This is explained in the Python docs.

print('{0:c}'.format(1506))

#Output
ע

If we pass a normal string literal to ord(), we get an error. This is because this string does not represent a Unicode character.

a = 'u05e2'
print(ord(a))

#Error
TypeError: ord() expected a character, but string of length 5 found
amanb
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-1

This is happening because you have to add the suffix u outside of the string.

a = u'\u05e2'
print(a)
ע

Hope this helps you.

acesaran
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