setting default encoding in a python.py [duplicate]

Question

I am calling some sort of API which returns an object with three properties:

obj.name
obj.id
obj.text

all of these could come in different encoding.

In order to output it correctly to my terminal, I am now doing

print obj.name.encode('UTF-8')
print obj.id.encode('UTF-8')
print obj.text.encode('UTF-8')

Is there a way I can simply do one time to set my default encoding to UTF-8?

I read some other post which suggested calling the sys.setdefaultencoding('UTF-8'), which is not available anymore in python 2.7.x

Please advise.

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-19 14:19:46Z

3

Normally Python detects the output encoding from the terminal settings; you can see what Python detected by running:

import sys
sys.stdout.encoding

You really want to configure your terminal to specify the correct encoding if that doesn't work for you; set the LC_CTYPE environment variable on POSIX systems for example.

You can also force Python to use an encoding by setting the PYTHONIOENCODING environment variable:

$ PYTHONIOENCODING=latin-1 python -c 'import sys; print sys.stdout.encoding'
latin-1
$  PYTHONIOENCODING=utf8 python -c 'import sys; print sys.stdout.encoding'
utf8

answered Feb 19, 2013 at 14:19

Martijn Pieters

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4 Comments

Cloud Yoda Over a year ago

It throws error if I did not specifically set the encoding to UTF-8. And my terminal has been set to in the .bash_profile: export LANG="en_US.UTF-8". I think my question is more about how can we set the global environment of a python script to a particular encoding rather than having to set each line individually during the print out.

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

@CloudYoda: That's what PYTHONIOENCODING does. If your bash profile already sets LANG then Python should already detect your terminal encoding, unless you are redirecting the script output with a pipe or > shell stream redirection.

Cloud Yoda Over a year ago

Thanks! It seems to work...although it throw different exception in my IDE..but i think thats due to my env setting with it.

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

@CloudYoda: Right, if you are running Python in an IDE, then the stdout encoding detected will be different from your terminal again!

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