[Numpy-discussion] Greek Letters

[Robert Kern]

Mark Janikas wrote:
> Thanks Robert.... but alas, I get.....
> 
>>>> import sys
>>>> sys.stdout.encoding
> 'cp437'
>>>> print u'\u03a7\u00b2'.encode(sys.stdout.encoding)
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
>   File "C:\Python24\lib\encodings\cp437.py", line 18, in encode
>     return codecs.charmap_encode(input,errors,encoding_map)
> UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character u'\u03a7' in position
>  0: character maps to <undefined>
> 
> 
> Ill keep at it.... please let me know if you have any solutions....

Yup, CP437 doesn't support the Χ character. You will have to use a terminal that
can accept a full-Unicode encoding like UTF-8 and a font that has the relevant
characters. Most of the modern terminal emulators for Linux et al. are capable
of UTF-8. On Windows, you may be out of luck. I don't know of any
fully-Unicode-capable terminal. Google tells me that cmd.exe takes a /U argument
that should put it in Unicode mode, but that doesn't change anything for me.

I also ran into a case where sys.stdout.encoding is None, so my solution is not
as robust as I thought.

If you use something else for your interpreter shell like IDLE, it is possible
that it supports Unicode. sys.stdout.encoding may not be set appropriately, though.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
 that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
 an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco