Rename layer with unsupported signs in a mxd via python?

[JohannesBierer]

Does someone have a code example?

[JohannesBierer]

This:

import arcpy
import os

mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("CURRENT")
for lyr in arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd):
    if lyr.supports("DATASOURCE"):
        arcpy.AddMessage("Layer: " + lyr.name + "  Source: " + lyr.dataSource)

for lyr in arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd):
    lyrname = str(lyr.name)
    print lyrname
    lyrname_replaced = lyrname.replace(" ","_")
    lyr.name = lyrname_replaced
    arcpy.AddMessage(lyrname_replaced)

arcpy.RefreshTOC()

leads to this error:

File "R:\Karto\zGIS\Python\RenameLayerinMxd.py", line 16, in <module>

    lyrname = str(lyr.name)

UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xe4' in position 3: ordinal not in range(128)

Any ideas?

[JohannesBierer]

If I use

lyrname.encode('utf-8')

This leads to:

UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 3: ordinal not in range(128)

???

[JohannesBierer · Accepted solution]

Right solution is:

lyrname.decode('utf-8')