How to determine the encoding of text?

Question

I received some text that is encoded, but I don\'t know what charset was used. Is there a way to determine the encoding of a text file using Python? How can I detect the enc

Answer 1

# Function: OpenRead(file)

# A text file can be encoded using:
#   (1) The default operating system code page, Or
#   (2) utf8 with a BOM header
#
#  If a text file is encoded with utf8, and does not have a BOM header,
#  the user can manually add a BOM header to the text file
#  using a text editor such as notepad++, and rerun the python script,
#  otherwise the file is read as a codepage file with the 
#  invalid codepage characters removed

import sys
if int(sys.version[0]) != 3:
    print('Aborted: Python 3.x required')
    sys.exit(1)

def bomType(file):
    """
    returns file encoding string for open() function

    EXAMPLE:
        bom = bomtype(file)
        open(file, encoding=bom, errors='ignore')
    """

    f = open(file, 'rb')
    b = f.read(4)
    f.close()

    if (b[0:3] == b'\xef\xbb\xbf'):
        return "utf8"

    # Python automatically detects endianess if utf-16 bom is present
    # write endianess generally determined by endianess of CPU
    if ((b[0:2] == b'\xfe\xff') or (b[0:2] == b'\xff\xfe')):
        return "utf16"

    if ((b[0:5] == b'\xfe\xff\x00\x00') 
              or (b[0:5] == b'\x00\x00\xff\xfe')):
        return "utf32"

    # If BOM is not provided, then assume its the codepage
    #     used by your operating system
    return "cp1252"
    # For the United States its: cp1252


def OpenRead(file):
    bom = bomType(file)
    return open(file, 'r', encoding=bom, errors='ignore')


#######################
# Testing it
#######################
fout = open("myfile1.txt", "w", encoding="cp1252")
fout.write("* hi there (cp1252)")
fout.close()

fout = open("myfile2.txt", "w", encoding="utf8")
fout.write("\u2022 hi there (utf8)")
fout.close()

# this case is still treated like codepage cp1252
#   (User responsible for making sure that all utf8 files
#   have a BOM header)
fout = open("badboy.txt", "wb")
fout.write(b"hi there.  barf(\x81\x8D\x90\x9D)")
fout.close()

# Read Example file with Bom Detection
fin = OpenRead("myfile1.txt")
L = fin.readline()
print(L)
fin.close()

# Read Example file with Bom Detection
fin = OpenRead("myfile2.txt")
L =fin.readline() 
print(L) #requires QtConsole to view, Cmd.exe is cp1252
fin.close()

# Read CP1252 with a few undefined chars without barfing
fin = OpenRead("badboy.txt")
L =fin.readline() 
print(L)
fin.close()

# Check that bad characters are still in badboy codepage file
fin = open("badboy.txt", "rb")
fin.read(20)
fin.close()