[Numpy-discussion] Greek Letters

[Zachary Pincus]

I have found that the python 'unicode name' escape sequence, combined  
with the canonical list of unicode names ( http://unicode.org/Public/ 
UNIDATA/NamesList.txt ), is a good way of getting the symbols you  
want and still keeping the python code legible.

 From the above list, we see that the symbol name we want is GREEK  
SMALL LETTER CHI, so:
chi = u'\N{GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI}'
will do the trick. For chi^2, use:
chi2 = u'\N{GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI}\N{SUPERSCRIPT TWO}'

Note that to print these characters, we usually need to encode them  
somehow. My terminal supports UTF-8, so the following works for me:
import codecs
print codecs.encode(chi2, 'utf8')

giving (if your mail reader supports utf8 and mine encodes it  
properly...):
χ²

Zach Pincus

Program in Biomedical Informatics and Department of Biochemistry
Stanford University School of Medicine


On Feb 20, 2007, at 3:56 PM, Mark Janikas wrote:

> Hello all,
>
>
>
> I was wondering how I could print the chi-squared symbol in  
> python.  I have been looking at the Unicode docs, but I figured I  
> would ask for assistance here while I delve into it.  Thanks for  
> any help in advance.
>
>
>
> Mark Janikas
>
> Product Engineer
>
> ESRI, Geoprocessing
>
> 380 New York St.
>
> Redlands, CA 92373
>
> 909-793-2853 (2563)
>
> mjanikas at esri.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Numpy-discussion mailing list
> Numpy-discussion at scipy.org
> http://projects.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion