codecs_decode_error.py

#1/usr/bin/env python

# this is from The Python
# Standard Library by example
# ISBN13: 9780321767349
# usage: strict - ignore - replace

import codecs
import sys

from codecs_to_hex import to_hex

error_handling = sys.argv[1]

text = u'pi: \u03c0'
print 'Original     :', repr(text)

# Save the data with one encoding
with codecs.open('decode_error.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-16') as f:
    f.write(text)

# Dump the bytes from the file
with open('decode_error.txt', 'rb') as f:
    print 'File contents:', to_hex(f.read(), 1)

# Try to read the data with the wrong encoding
with codecs.open('decode_error.txt', 'r',
                 encoding='utf-8',
                 errors=error_handling) as f:

    try:
        data = f.read()
    except UnicodeDecodeError, err:
        print 'ERROR:', err
    else:
        print 'Read     :', repr(data)