Python script to convert from UTF-8 to ASCII

python utf-8 character-encoding ascii

139,413

Solution 1

data="UTF-8 DATA"
udata=data.decode("utf-8")
asciidata=udata.encode("ascii","ignore")

Solution 2

UTF-8 is a superset of ASCII. Either your UTF-8 file is ASCII, or it can't be converted without loss.

139,413

Author by

Nicolas

Updated on January 07, 2020

Comments

Nicolas over 4 years
I'm trying to write a script in python to convert utf-8 files into ASCII files:
```
#!/usr/bin/env python
# *-* coding: iso-8859-1 *-*

import sys
import os

filePath = "test.lrc"
fichier = open(filePath, "rb")
contentOfFile = fichier.read()
fichier.close()

fichierTemp = open("tempASCII", "w")
fichierTemp.write(contentOfFile.encode("ASCII", 'ignore'))
fichierTemp.close()
```
When I run this script I have the following error :

UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xef in position 13: ordinal not in range(128)

I thought that can ignore error with the ignore parameter in the encode method. But it seems not.

I'm open to other ways to convert.
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams over 13 years

I think he's aware of that, otherwise he wouldn't be trying to use 'ignore'.
Tobu over 13 years

@Ignacio True. But this one left me wondering what the asker is trying to achieve. They could be cargo-culting, or maybe their need is best met by something like urlencode, or being lossy is just acceptable.
tchrist over 13 years

Sounds like a bad recipe for data loss.
tchrist over 13 years

I am afraid of the cargo-culting. Culling all characters that you don’t have an appreciation for is really insensitive.
Utku Zihnioglu over 13 years

You should expect data loss if you wish to convert from a 8bit encoding to 7bit.
tchrist over 13 years

@Ignacio: Imagine being addressed as Vzquez-Abrams. :(
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams over 13 years

@tchrist: That's why I never use it.
Nicolas over 13 years

I ignored that I have to decode first. It works now thanks. To answer to the questions, I want to do this because my MP3 player can only display lyrics files encoded in ASCII.
JSBach about 7 years

You can have a look at this solution: stackoverflow.com/a/517974/1463812
Kovalex over 2 years

Sometimes you can convert UTF8 to ASCII without losses, for instance, single quotes or apostrophes, in few other cases - arithmetic operations - both available as UTF8 long encoding and ASCII single symbol.