Python unicode list join

Question

I want to join a unicode python list, for example:

a = [u'00', u'0c', u'29', u'58', u'86', u'16']

I want a string that looks like this:

'00:0c:29:58:86:16'

How would I join this?

Solution

>>> a = [u'00', u'0c', u'29', u'58', u'86', u'16']
>>> u":".join(a)
u'00:0c:29:58:86:16'
>>> str(u":".join(a))
'00:0c:29:58:86:16'

Comments

[agf]

Or the other way: b':'.join(str(item) for item in a)

[Rafael S. Calsaverini]

I tried this and I keep getting a UnicodeDecodeError about unicode characters with an accent. Does anyone knows why?

[MattH]

@RafaelS.Calsaverini: If your error is on the str part of this solution it is because the character cannot be represented in ascii. If you need your unicode string in ascii you will have to make an approximation, try a solution like this one: stackoverflow.com/a/8087466/267781