How to Resolve \'UnicodeDecodeError: \'utf8\' codec can\'t decode byte...\' Errors?

UnicodeDecodeError: Dealing with Invalid Continuation Bytes

When working with Unicode strings, you may encounter the dreaded "UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xe9 in position 10: invalid continuation byte" error. This error indicates a problem with the decoding process, specifically with invalid continuation bytes.

To decode a multi-byte Unicode character properly, the first byte (known as the preamble) is followed by one or more continuation bytes. These continuation bytes must fall within a specific range for the character to be decoded correctly. In this case, the byte in position 10 (0xe9) does not fit within this range, leading to the error.

Understanding the "latin-1" Codec

When you decode the string with the "latin-1" codec, it succeeds because this codec interprets the problematic byte (0xe9) as a single-byte character. "latin-1" is an 8-bit encoding that maps each byte to a specific character, unlike Unicode which can use multiple bytes to represent a character. Therefore, in this case, "latin-1" simply treats the byte as a character, effectively bypassing the error.

Example: Decoding with "latin-1"

Using "latin-1" to decode the string:

o = "a test of \xe9 char"
v = o.decode("latin-1")
print(v)

Output:

a test of é char

In this case, the problematic byte is decoded as the character "é", which is a valid character in "latin-1". However, it's important to note that this approach can lead to loss of information if the string contains other Unicode characters that cannot be represented within the "latin-1" encoding.

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