I am creating a simple game designed to prompt the user for the Greek translation of an English word. For example:
cow: # here, the gamer would answer with *η αγελάδα* in order to score one point.
I use a helper function to read and decode from a txt file. I do so using the following code in said function:
# The variable filename refers to my helper function's sole parameter, it takes the
# above mentioned txt file as an argument.
words_text = codecs.open(filename, 'r', 'utf-8')
This helper function then reads each line. The lines resemble something like this:
# In stack data, when I debug, it reads as u"\η αγελάδα - cow\r\n".
u"\u03b7 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1 - cow\r\n"
The first line of the file when read, however, has an unwanted prefix, ueff-:
# u"\ufeffη αγελάδα - cow\r\n"
u"\ufeff\u03b7 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1 - cow\r\n"
Note: After reviewing Mark's answer, I found out that the prepended oject (ueff) was a BOM signature (it is used to distinguish UTF-8 from other encodings).
It's a minor issue and I am not sure how to remove it in the tidiest of manners. Anyways, my helper function then creates and returns a new dictionary which looks something like this:
{u'\u03b7 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1': 'cow'}
Then, in my main function, I use the following in order to store the user's input:
# This is the code for the prompt I noted at the beginning.
# The variable gr_en_dict is the dictionary noted right above.
for key in gr_en_dict:
user_reply = raw_input('%s: ' % (gr_en_dict[key])).decode(sys.stdout.encoding)
I then compare the value of the user's input with the appropriate key in the dictionary:
# I imported unicodedata as ud.
if ud.normalize('NFC', user_reply) == ud.normalize('NFC', key):
score += 1
In a response to a question similar to mine, the user ΤΖΩΤΖΙΟΥ said to import the module unicodedata and to call the normalize method (which I did in the code above), but I suspect that might not be necessary. Unfortunately, this step of the program is of no concern just yet because I have a problem decoding the user's input. To demonstrate, when I print the canonical string representation of user_reply and that of the corresponding key in my dictionary [using the built-in repr()] I get the following result:
user's input (user_reply):
u'? \u03b1?\u03b5??\u03b4\u03b1'
If I print the user's input without the repr() function, it looks like this:
? α?ε??δα
key in my dictionary:
u'\u03b7 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1'
If I print it without repr(), I get an error:
UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character u'\u03b7' in position 0: character maps to <undefined>
Notice the question marks in the user's input and the error I get when I try to print the Greek word proper. This seems to be the crux of my problem.
So, what exactly do I need to do in order to decode the user's input and to display all Greek characters properly?
When using my native code page:
C:\>chcp
Active code page: 437
C:\>\python25\python
Python 2.5.4 (r254:67916, Dec 23 2008, 15:10:54) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on
win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> sys.stdout.encoding
'cp437'
>>> print '? α?ε??δα'
? α?ε??δα
>>>
When using the Greek code page: (strangely, it appears correctly only when I copy it to clipboard first and then paste it into a word type application. I would post an image of the what it actually prints in default console, but I lack the reputation to do so.)
C:\>chcp 869
Active code page: 869
C:\>\python25\python
Python 2.5.4 (r254:67916, Dec 23 2008, 15:10:54) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on
win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> sys.stdout.encoding
'cp869'
>>> print ' η αγελάδα'
η αγελάδα
>>> print 'η αγελάδα'
η αγελάδα
>>>
UP: I had to change default console's font to Lucida Console. That solved my discrepancy.
For part of your question, use:
words_text = codecs.open(filename, 'r', 'utf-8-sig')
and it will handle processing the byte-order-mark of \ufeff.
Technically, this:
user_reply = raw_input('%s: ' % (gr_en_dict[key])).decode(sys.stdout.encoding)
should be:
user_reply = raw_input('%s: ' % (gr_en_dict[key])).decode(sys.stdin.encoding)
but in practice they should be the same encoding.
I believe the problem is the encoding in your default console does not support all Greek characters. When I change to a Greek code page, things begin to work better. Note that I can paste the correct characters into the print statement below, but cp437 doesn't actually support all the characters, so when printed the unsupported characters are replaced with a question mark:
C:\>chcp
Active code page: 437
C:\>python
Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, Nov 27 2010, 18:30:46) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> sys.stdout.encoding
'cp437'
>>> print 'η αγελάδα - cow'
? α?ε??δα - cow
If I switch to a Greek code page (869 or 1253), it works:
C:\>chcp 869
Active code page: 869
C:\>python
Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, Nov 27 2010, 18:30:46) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> sys.stdout.encoding
'cp869'
>>> print 'η αγελάδα - cow'
η αγελάδα - cow
>>>