[PythonCE] Unicode default encoding

[Luke Dunstan]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeffrey Barish" <jeff_barish at earthlink.net>
To: <pythonce at python.org>
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2006 11:03 AM
Subject: [PythonCE] Unicode default encoding


> What is the correct way to set PythonCE's default Unicode encoding?  My
> reading (Python in a Nutshell) indicates that I am supposed to make a 
> change
> to site.py, but there doesn't seem to be a site.py in PythonCE.  (The 
> closest
> I came is a site.pyc in python23.zip.)  Nutshell suggests that in 
> desperation
> one could put the following at the start of the main script:
>
> import sys
> reload(sys)
> sys.setdefaultencoding('iso-8859-15')
> del sys.setdefaultencoding
>
> This code solved the problem I was having reading and processing text that
> contains Unicode characters, but I am uncomfortable leaving a desperation
> solution in place.
> -- 
> Jeffrey Barish

I don't think modifying site.py would be a good solution, because if you 
upgrade or reinstall python then the script will be overwritten. If you only 
want to run your program on your own system then a better solution is to 
create a file sitecustomize.py in your Python\Lib directory containing this:

import sys
sys.setdefaultencoding('iso-8859-15')

If you want to distribute your program to other people though, you can't 
expect them to change their default encoding so it is better not to rely on 
the default encoding at all.

Luke