How to Fix a 'UnicodeDecodeError' When Reading Text Files in Python?

Addressing 'UnicodeDecodeError' and Encoding Conversion

In an attempt to manipulate data stored in a text file, you encountered the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):  
File "SCRIPT LOCATION", line NUMBER, in <module>  
    text = file.read()
File "C:\Python31\lib\encodings\cp1252.py", line 23, in decode  
    return codecs.charmap_decode(input,self.errors,decoding_table)[0]
UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' codec can't decode byte 0x90 in position 2907500: character maps to `<undefined>`  

This error stems from a mismatch between the assumed encoding (CP1252) and the actual encoding of the file. To resolve this issue, we need to identify the correct encoding and specify it explicitly when opening the file.

Identifying the File Encoding

As stated in the question, determining the encoding of the file is crucial. Unfortunately, this needs to be done manually. Common encodings include Latin-1 and UTF-8. However, given that 0x90 is not a valid character in Latin-1, UTF-8 is a strong candidate.

Specifying the Encoding

Once you have determined the encoding, you can specify it when opening the file using the encoding parameter:

file = open(filename, encoding="utf8")

By providing the correct encoding, Python will be able to properly decode the text file and allow you to manipulate its contents without encountering the 'UnicodeDecodeError' exception.

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