topic Re: Str.format() function fails on Norwegian characters in Python Questions

Str.format() function fails on Norwegian characters

JosteinSvegården — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:19:52 GMT

I have a script with a SearchCursor that runs through a feature layer and writes the feature properties to a semicolon divided text file. When it comes to a feature which has a property that contains one of the Norwegian letters æ, ø or å (html: æ, ø or å), the script crashes on the str.format() function

Traceback info:
File "C:\Infrastructure_calculation.py", line 97, in <module>
propStr += ";{0}".format(IS[index])

Error Info:
'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xc6' in position 1: ordinal not in range(128)

ISs = da.SearchCursor("ISpoint_lyr", "*")
for IS in ISs:
    for index in range(len(ISs.fields)):
        if index <> shapeFieldIndex:
             propStr += ";{0}".format(IS[index])

I guess this have something to do with unicode encoding, but I have not been able to find a solution. Any input is appreciated!

Re: Str.format() function fails on Norwegian characters

JasonScheirer — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 11:44:00 GMT

Mark the format string as unicode (with a u beforehand u"like this") so it doesn't try to downcast your Norwegian characters to ascii.

ISs = da.SearchCursor("ISpoint_lyr", "*")
for IS in ISs:
    propStr = u""
    for index in range(len(ISs.fields)):
        if index <> shapeFieldIndex:
             propStr += u";{0}".format(IS[index])

Re: Str.format() function fails on Norwegian characters

JosteinSvegården — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 07:05:31 GMT

Thanks, Jason, that did it!

It is easy to get lost in all this encoding stuff. So for readers that might bump into this thread later, I will add that to be able to write the resulting string to a file, I had to convert the unicode string to a string of bytes using the string.encode() function:

STR_result = STR_result.encode('utf8', 'replace')

See http://pythonhosted.org/kitchen/unicode-frustrations.html