Python 2.7 encoding

Question

I am trying to write a xml file from python (2.7) using xml.append function.

I have a string "Frédéric" that needs to be written to xml file as one of the values. I am trying to use unicode function on this string and then encode function to write to the file.

a ="Frédéric"
unicode(a, 'utf8')

By I get error message as 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe9 in position 9'

I have gone through other stackoverflow posts for this scenario, the suggestion was to add unicode-literal before the string.

a = u'Frédéric'
a.encode('utf8')

Since, my 'a' variable is going to be dynamic (it can take any value from a list) I need to use unicode function.

Any suggestions please?

Thanks

Answer 1

Maybe following helps. You can use codecs to save the XML string while using utf-8.

import codecs


def save_xml_string(path, xml_string):
    """
    Writes the given string to the file associated with the given path.
    :param path: 
        Path to the file to write to.
    :param xml_string: 
        The string to be written
    :return: 
        nothing
    """
    output_file = codecs.open(path, "w", "utf-8")
    output_file.write(xml_string)
    output_file.close()