Files & data
Read and write files safely; parse JSON, CSV, and common text formats.
How to Detect File Encoding: UTF-8 vs Latin-1 in Python
Detect whether a file is UTF-8 or Latin-1 encoded by attempting a UTF-8 decode and falling back to Latin-1.
import sys
def detect_encoding(file_path):
with open(file_path, 'rb') as f:
raw = f.read()
try:
raw.decode('utf-8')
return 'UTF-8'
except UnicodeDecodeError:
return 'latin1'
if __name__ == "__main__":
file_path = sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv) > 1 else 'sample.txt'
…How to Transcode a File from Latin-1 to UTF-8 in Python
Read a latin1-encoded text file and rewrite it as UTF-8 using Python's pathlib and encoding parameters.
from pathlib import Path
def transcode_to_utf8(input_path, output_path):
"""Read a latin1-encoded file and write it as UTF-8."""
source = Path(input_path)
target = Path(output_path)
with source.open(encoding='latin1') as infile:
content = infile.read()
with target.open('w', encod…Browse by section
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