Trying to type '→' with keyboard module

Question

I am making a program that writes a program in TI-Basic. In TI-Basic, to set a variable, the syntax is value → varname. The TI-Connect software doesn't like it when I copy-paste, so I'm using the keyboard module to simulate keypresses. I can't manually type the program as it is about 850 lines long. When I try to run the program, I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_3.10.2544.0_x64__qbz5n2kfra8p0\lib\runpy.py", line 196, in _run_module_as_main
    return _run_code(code, main_globals, None,
  File "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_3.10.2544.0_x64__qbz5n2kfra8p0\lib\runpy.py", line 86, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "c:\Users\USERNAME\.vscode\extensions\ms-python.python-2022.20.1\pythonFiles\lib\python\debugpy\__main__.py", line 39, in <module>
    cli.main()
  File "c:\Users\USERNAME\.vscode\extensions\ms-python.python-2022.20.1\pythonFiles\lib\python\debugpy/..\debugpy\server\cli.py", line 430, in main
    run()
  File "c:\Users\USERNAME\.vscode\extensions\ms-python.python-2022.20.1\pythonFiles\lib\python\debugpy/..\debugpy\server\cli.py", line 284, in run_file
    runpy.run_path(target, run_name="__main__")
  File "c:\Users\USERNAME\.vscode\extensions\ms-python.python-2022.20.1\pythonFiles\lib\python\debugpy\_vendored\pydevd\_pydevd_bundle\pydevd_runpy.py", line 321, in run_path
    return _run_module_code(code, init_globals, run_name,
  File "c:\Users\USERNAME\.vscode\extensions\ms-python.python-2022.20.1\pythonFiles\lib\python\debugpy\_vendored\pydevd\_pydevd_bundle\pydevd_runpy.py", line 135, in _run_module_code
    _run_code(code, mod_globals, init_globals,
  File "c:\Users\USERNAME\.vscode\extensions\ms-python.python-2022.20.1\pythonFiles\lib\python\debugpy\_vendored\pydevd\_pydevd_bundle\pydevd_runpy.py", line 124, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "c:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Python\jokes\jokes.py", line 33, in <module>
    keyboard.press_and_release(f'shift+{char.lower()}')
  File "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python310\site-packages\keyboard\__init__.py", line 379, in send
    parsed = parse_hotkey(hotkey)
  File "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python310\site-packages\keyboard\__init__.py", line 358, in parse_hotkey  
    steps.append(tuple(key_to_scan_codes(key) for key in keys))
  File "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python310\site-packages\keyboard\__init__.py", line 358, in <genexpr>     
    steps.append(tuple(key_to_scan_codes(key) for key in keys))
  File "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python310\site-packages\keyboard\__init__.py", line 324, in key_to_scan_codes
    raise ValueError('Key {} is not mapped to any known key.'.format(repr(key)), e)
ValueError: ("Key '→' is not mapped to any known key.", ValueError("Key name '→' is not mapped to any known key."))

My code:

import sys
sys.stdout = open('C:\\Users\\USERNAME\\Documents\\Python\\jokes\\program.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-8')

with open('C:\\Users\\USERNAME\\Documents\\Python\\jokes\\jokes.txt', encoding='utf-8') as jokesfile:
    jokes = jokesfile.readlines()

print(f'Disp "Press enter to hear a joke."\nPause\nrandInt(1,{len(jokes)})→X\nClrHome')
i = 0
for joke in jokes:
    joke, answer = joke.split('<>')
    delay = 2
    print(f'If X = {i}\nThen\nOutput(0,0,"{joke}")\nWait {delay}\nOutput(5,0,"{answer}")\n')

print('Pause')

import keyboard
import logging

logging.log(1, 'Press enter to paste file.')

with open('C:\\Users\\USERNAME\\Documents\\Python\\jokes\\program.txt', encoding='utf-8') as programfile:
    chars = programfile.read()

while not keyboard.is_pressed('enter'):
    pass
while keyboard.is_pressed('enter'):
    pass

for char in chars: # loop through all characters in the program
    if char == '\n': # if it's a newline, manually add it.
        keyboard.press_and_release('enter')
    if char.upper() == char and char not in ' \n\t,0123456789/*-+[]\;\',./`': # if it's a capital letter
        keyboard.press_and_release(f'shift+{char.lower()}')
    else: # normal character
        keyboard.press_and_release(char)

I can't figure out how to type this key.

Answer 1

The best solution I found is to use a different python keyboard library, pynput. It has native support for typing unicode characters. Here is some sample code:

import pynput

keyboard = pynput.keyboard.Controller()

keyboard.type("→")