Open a .dir file using any python

Question

I have a file with .dir extension. I tried opening it but getting unknown/unreadable characters. I also tried opening it using python and java but not able to get the correct encoding/decoding for the characters in file. Can someone help me in this or provide some other application in which I can open this file? I have tried the below code in python but getting unreadable characters:

with open(file_name, "rb") as binary_file:
    data = binary_file.read()
    dec_str = data.decode('utf-8', errors='ignore')
    print(dec_str)

Did you look up the file extension on the web? Hint: Adobe Director. — MarsAtomic, Jul 15 '20 at 18:47
You should try to run `file /path/to/your/file` in order to get the encoding of the file. Have you just tried to `cat` the file to read it's content in a shell ? Does that work ? — Orsiris de Jong, Jul 15 '20 at 18:47
Why would one use JavaScript console.dir() to create a file instead of using JSON? And why is it tagged Java? — Thomas Weller, Jul 15 '20 at 18:51

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 15 '20 at 18:50

You can use the lovely chardet package to infer file encoding.

import chardet

with open(file_name, "rb") as binary_file:
    data = binary_file.read()
    enc = chardet.detect(data)
    dec_str = data.decode(enc['encoding'], errors='ignore')
    print(dec_str)

See official docs for details.

Open a .dir file using any python

1 Answers1