How to Solve Python's UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' Codec Can't Decode Byte Errors?

UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' Codec Decoding Issues

When attempting to manipulate text files containing various information, you may encounter the following error in Python 3:

UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' codec can't decode byte X in position Y: character maps to '<undefined>'</undefined>

This error indicates that the file is not encoded using the standard CP1252 encoding. Instead, it employs a different encoding that needs to be identified.

Determining the Correct Encoding

To resolve this issue, determine the encoding of the file you are trying to open. Common encodings include Latin-1 and UTF-8.

Specifying the Encoding

Once you have determined the encoding, open the file as follows:

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

Example

If the file is using UTF-8 encoding, open it as follows:

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

By specifying the correct encoding, Python will be able to decode the file's content successfully and avoid the UnicodeDecodeError.

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