Some of the ways in this article will help you to fix the “UnicodeEncodeError: ‘ascii’ codec can’t encode character in position” error in Python. Follow these instructions to fix it.
What causes the “UnicodeEncodeError: ‘ascii’ codec can’t encode character in position” error?
The “UnicodeEncodeError: codec ‘ascii’ cannot encode characters in position” error occurs when using codec ‘ascii’ to encode characters in a string whose characters are not in the ‘ascii’ encoding.
Example:
characters = ' βµ∞ '
myCharacters = characters.encode('ascii')
print(myCharacters)Output:
The program fails because the characters ‘βµ∞’ is not in the ‘ascii’ encoding.
Solutions to fix “UnicodeEncodeError: ‘ascii’ codec can’t encode character in position” error
Using the utf-8 encoding
UTF-8 is an encoder that can encode more than ‘ascii’ (about a million characters are legally encoded in Unicode). So it will quickly solve this problem.
Example:
characters = ' βµ∞ '
myCharacters = characters.encode('utf-8')
print(myCharacters)Output:
b' \xce\xb2\xc2\xb5\xe2\x88\x9e 'Using “errors=’ignore’” to ignore unencoded characters while still using ‘utf-8’
Example:
- Create a string with special characters.
- Use the
encode()function in conjunction with the ‘utf-8′ encoder and errors=’ignore’ to ignore unencoded characters in the utf-8 encoder. - Similarly, you can also decode strings with special characters using
decode()with the sameencode()function parameter.
# Encode "characters"
characters = ' βµ∞'
myCharacters = characters.encode('utf-8', errors='ignore')
print('Encode "characters":', myCharacters)
# Decode "characters"
myCharactersAgain = myCharacters.decode('utf-8', errors='ignore')
print('Decode "characters":', myCharactersAgain)Output:
Encode "characters": b' \xce\xb2\xc2\xb5\xe2\x88\x9e'
Decode "characters": βµ∞Solution 3: Using “errors=’ignore’” to ignore characters that are not in the ‘ascii’ encoding
Example:
- Create a string with special characters.
- Use the
encode()function in conjunction with the ascii encoder and errors=’ignore’ to ignore unencoded characters in the ascii encoder. - Similarly, you can also decode strings with special characters using
decode()with the sameencode()function parameter.
# Encode "characters"
characters = " john βµ∞"
myCharacters = characters.encode("ascii", errors="ignore")
print('Encode "characters":', myCharacters)
# Decode "characters"
myCharactersAgain = myCharacters.decode("ascii", errors="ignore")
print('Decode "characters":', myCharactersAgain)Output:
Encode "characters": b' john '
Decode "characters": johnThe program will ignore characters not in the ‘ascii’ encoding.
Install the code ‘UTF-8’ when your Python is not using it
If the characters in your Python file are being written in a certain code, you should change that code to ‘UTF-8’ so that Python can understand it. To install the ‘UTF-8’ encoder use the following command:
Syntax:
# coding : character code nameor
# coding = character code nameExample:
# Coding: shift_jis
print("สวัสดี")Output:
สวัสดีNote: สวัสดี is hello in Thai. To Python can decode it, you need to add the code # coding: shift_jis at the beginning of the ‘print’ statement. This method works for computers with non-English operating systems.
Summary
I hope you solved the “UnicodeEncodeError: ‘ascii’ codec can’t encode character in position” problem on your own through the examples. To read more good articles, visit learnshareit. Thanks!
Maybe you are interested in similar errors:
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- UnicodeDecodeError: ‘ascii’ codec can’t decode byte
- UnicodeDecodeError: ‘charmap’ codec can’t decode byte
My name is Jason Wilson, you can call me Jason. My major is information technology, and I am proficient in C++, Python, and Java. I hope my writings are useful to you while you study programming languages.
Name of the university: HHAU
Major: IT
Programming Languages: C++, Python, Java