Nested If statement with read_csv

Question

Have an if statement that goes and downloads a file from a server. When it's not in the if statement the script runs fine, however, within the if statement it gives me an error. Any idea?

    leagues = {
            '1': 'Premier League',
            '2': 'Championship League',
            '3': 'League 1',
            '4': 'League 2',
            '5': 'Conference League'
        }

        # Choose which league to model
        print("Please pick which league:\n")
        for ref, league in leagues.items():
            print(ref, ":", league)

        leagueChoice = input("Enter League Number: ")

        if leagueChoice == 1:
            df = pd.read_csv(
                "http://www.football- data.co.uk/mmz4281/{}/E0.csv".format(season_year))

            england_teams = {
                '1': 'Arsenal',
            }

            print(df.head)
            exit()
        elif leagueChoice == 2:
            df = pd.read_csv(
                "http://www.football-data.co.uk/mmz4281/{}/E1.csv".format(season_year))

            england_teams = {
                '1': 'Aston Villa',
            }
        elif leagueChoice == 3:
            df = pd.read_csv(
                "http://www.football-data.co.uk/mmz4281/{}/E2.csv".format(season_year))

            england_teams = {
                '1': 'Accrington',
            }
        elif leagueChoice == 4:
            df = pd.read_csv(
                "http://www.football-data.co.uk/mmz4281/{}/E3.csv".format(season_year))

            england_teams = {
                '1': 'Bury',
            }
        else:
            df = pd.read_csv(
                "http://www.football-data.co.uk/mmz4281/{}/EC.csv".format(season_year))

            england_teams = {
                '1': 'Aldershot',
            }

Traceback (most recent call last): File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 1169, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_tokens File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 1299, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_with_dtype File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 1315, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._string_convert File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 1553, in pandas._libs.parsers._string_box_utf8 UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xa0 in position 1: invalid start byte

> During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

> Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "Soccer.py", line 794, in <module>
    main_menu()
  File "Soccer.py", line 64, in main_menu
    exec_menu(choice)
  File "Soccer.py", line 77, in exec_menu
    menu_actions[ch]()
  File "Soccer.py", line 571, in england
    "http://www.football-data.co.uk/mmz4281/{}/EC.csv".format(season_year))
  File "/Users/user/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/io/parsers.py", line 702, in parser_f
    return _read(filepath_or_buffer, kwds)
  File "/Users/user/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/io/parsers.py", line 435, in _read
    data = parser.read(nrows)
  File "/Users/user/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/io/parsers.py", line 1139, in read
    ret = self._engine.read(nrows)
  File "/Users/user/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/io/parsers.py", line 1995, in read
    data = self._reader.read(nrows)
  File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 899, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader.read
  File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 914, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._read_low_memory
  File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 991, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._read_rows
  File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 1123, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_column_data
  File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 1176, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_tokens
  File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 1299, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_with_dtype
  File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 1315, in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._string_convert
  File "pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx", line 1553, in pandas._libs.parsers._string_box_utf8
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xa0 in position 1: invalid start byte

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 21 '19 at 20:32

'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xa0 in position 1: invalid start byte usually means it's a character (e.g., smart quotes) that can't be decoded into a unicode string. Thus, the problem is most likely in the .csv document, not in the code itself.

To handle it, you can pass an explicit encoding argument to read_csv(), like so:

df = pd.read_csv("<file>".format(season_year), encoding='<type>')

Here is a nice list of Python 3's standard encodings.

Nested If statement with read_csv

1 Answers1