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Using UTF-16 encoding in python

I'm trying to encode non-ascii characters in python using utf-16-le, and here's the snippet of the code for this:

import os
import sys
def run():
 print sys.getdefaultencoding()
 reload(sys)
 sys.setdefaultencoding('utf-16-le')
 print sys.getdefaultencoding()
 test_dir = unit_test_utils.get_test_dir("utkarsh")
 dir_name_1 = '東京'
 ....
 ....
if __name__ == '__main__':
 run()

When this code is run, this is the error seen:

# /u/bin/python-qs /root/python/tests/abc.py -c /root/test.conf 
 File "/root/python/tests/abc.py", line 27
SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\xe6' in file /root/python/tests/abc.py on line 27, but no encoding declared; see http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0263.html for details

How can this be fixed? I tried adding this line to the beginning of the file, but to no avail:

# -*- coding: utf-16-le -*-

The error this time around was:

# /u/bin/python-qs /root/python/tests/abc.py -c /root/test.conf
 File "/root/python/tests/abc.py", line 2
 import os
import sys
...
...
if __name__ == '__main__':
 run()
 ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Edit:

Line 27: dir_name_1 = '東京'

Answer*

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  • Line 27: dir_name_1 = '東京'. I've updated the post with this. Commented Apr 21, 2016 at 9:10
  • How do I get the characters UTF-16 encoded, if it is possible? One of the comments says that UTF-16 and UTF-32 are not supported for source editor. Commented May 23, 2016 at 9:52
  • Can I add them to the file and read them specifying that the contents are UTF-16 encoded? Commented May 23, 2016 at 9:53
  • 1
    @Maddy If the file is UTF8-encoded, you can get utf16-le encoded bytes that way: dir_name_1 = '東京'; utf16_dirname_1 = dir_name_1.decode('utf8').encode(utf16-le) Commented May 23, 2016 at 11:57
  • 1
    @Maddy: I forgot to tell you to declare the utf8 encoding. The python file must start with # -*- coding: utf8-*- or if first line declares a shell (such as #! /usr/bin/env python, the coding line must be the second one. Commented May 23, 2016 at 15:56

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