"Unicode Error "unicodeescape" codec can't decode bytes… Cannot open text files in Python 3
Question:
I am using Python 3.1 on a Windows 7 machine. Russian is the default system language, and utf-8 is the default encoding.
Looking at the answer to a previous question, I have attempting using the "codecs" module to give me a little luck. Here’s a few examples:
>>> g = codecs.open("C:UsersEricDesktopbeeline.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-4: truncated UXXXXXXXX escape (<pyshell#39>, line 1)
>>> g = codecs.open("C:UsersEricDesktopSite.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-4: truncated UXXXXXXXX escape (<pyshell#40>, line 1)
>>> g = codecs.open("C:Python31Notes.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 11-12: malformed N character escape (<pyshell#41>, line 1)
>>> g = codecs.open("C:UsersEricDesktopSite.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-4: truncated UXXXXXXXX escape (<pyshell#44>, line 1)
My last idea was, I thought it might have been the fact that Windows "translates" a few folders, such as the "users" folder, into Russian (though typing "users" is still the correct path), so I tried it in the Python31 folder. Still, no luck. Any ideas?
Answers:
The problem is with the string
"C:UsersEricDesktopbeeline.txt"
Here, U in "C:Users… starts an eight-character Unicode escape, such as U00014321. In your code, the escape is followed by the character ‘s’, which is invalid.
You either need to duplicate all backslashes:
"C:\Users\Eric\Desktop\beeline.txt"
Or prefix the string with r (to produce a raw string):
r"C:UsersEricDesktopbeeline.txt"
I had this same error in python 3.2.
I have script for email sending and:
csv.reader(open('work_diruslugi1.csv', newline='', encoding='utf-8'))
when I remove first char in file uslugi1.csv works fine.
Refer to openpyxl document, you can do changes as followings.
from openpyxl import Workbook
from openpyxl.drawing.image import Image
wb = Workbook()
ws = wb.active
ws['A1'] = 'Insert a xxx.PNG'
# Reload an image
img = Image(**r**'x:xxxxxxxxx.png')
# Insert to worksheet and anchor next to cells
ws.add_image(img, 'A2')
wb.save(**r**'x:xxxxxx.xlsx')
Typical error on Windows because the default user directory is C:user<your_user>, so when you want to pass this path as a string argument into a Python function, you get a Unicode error, just because the u is a Unicode escape. If the next 8 characters after the u are not numeric this produces an error.
To solve it, just double the backslashes: C:\user\<your_user>...
This will ensure that Python treats the single backslashes as single backslashes.
Or you could replace ” with ‘/’ in the path.
I had same error, just uninstalled and installed again the numpy package, that worked!
Prefixing with 'r' works very well, but it needs to be in the correct syntax. For example:
passwordFile = open(r'''C:UsersBobSecretPasswordFile.txt''')
No need for \ here – maintains readability and works well.
With Python 3 I had this problem:
self.path = 'T:PythonScriptsProjectsUtilities'
produced this error:
self.path = 'T:PythonScriptsProjectsUtilities'
^
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in
position 25-26: truncated UXXXXXXXX escape
the fix that worked is:
self.path = r'T:PythonScriptsProjectsUtilities'
It seems the ‘U’ was producing an error and the ‘r’ preceding the string turns off the eight-character Unicode escape (for a raw string) which was failing. (This is a bit of an over-simplification, but it works if you don’t care about unicode)
Hope this helps someone
path = pd.read_csv(**'C:UsersmraviDesktopfilename'**)
The error is because of the path that is mentioned
Add 'r' before the path
path = pd.read_csv(**r'C:UsersmraviDesktopfilename'**)
This would work fine.
I had this error.
I have a main python script which calls in functions from another, 2nd, python script.
At the end of the first script I had a comment block designated with ''' '''.
I was getting this error because of this commenting code block.
I repeated the error multiple times once I found it to ensure this was the error, & it was.
I am still unsure why.
I am using Python 3.1 on a Windows 7 machine. Russian is the default system language, and utf-8 is the default encoding.
Looking at the answer to a previous question, I have attempting using the "codecs" module to give me a little luck. Here’s a few examples:
>>> g = codecs.open("C:UsersEricDesktopbeeline.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-4: truncated UXXXXXXXX escape (<pyshell#39>, line 1)
>>> g = codecs.open("C:UsersEricDesktopSite.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-4: truncated UXXXXXXXX escape (<pyshell#40>, line 1)
>>> g = codecs.open("C:Python31Notes.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 11-12: malformed N character escape (<pyshell#41>, line 1)
>>> g = codecs.open("C:UsersEricDesktopSite.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-4: truncated UXXXXXXXX escape (<pyshell#44>, line 1)
My last idea was, I thought it might have been the fact that Windows "translates" a few folders, such as the "users" folder, into Russian (though typing "users" is still the correct path), so I tried it in the Python31 folder. Still, no luck. Any ideas?
The problem is with the string
"C:UsersEricDesktopbeeline.txt"
Here, U in "C:Users… starts an eight-character Unicode escape, such as U00014321. In your code, the escape is followed by the character ‘s’, which is invalid.
You either need to duplicate all backslashes:
"C:\Users\Eric\Desktop\beeline.txt"
Or prefix the string with r (to produce a raw string):
r"C:UsersEricDesktopbeeline.txt"
I had this same error in python 3.2.
I have script for email sending and:
csv.reader(open('work_diruslugi1.csv', newline='', encoding='utf-8'))
when I remove first char in file uslugi1.csv works fine.
Refer to openpyxl document, you can do changes as followings.
from openpyxl import Workbook
from openpyxl.drawing.image import Image
wb = Workbook()
ws = wb.active
ws['A1'] = 'Insert a xxx.PNG'
# Reload an image
img = Image(**r**'x:xxxxxxxxx.png')
# Insert to worksheet and anchor next to cells
ws.add_image(img, 'A2')
wb.save(**r**'x:xxxxxx.xlsx')
Typical error on Windows because the default user directory is C:user<your_user>, so when you want to pass this path as a string argument into a Python function, you get a Unicode error, just because the u is a Unicode escape. If the next 8 characters after the u are not numeric this produces an error.
To solve it, just double the backslashes: C:\user\<your_user>...
This will ensure that Python treats the single backslashes as single backslashes.
Or you could replace ” with ‘/’ in the path.
I had same error, just uninstalled and installed again the numpy package, that worked!
Prefixing with 'r' works very well, but it needs to be in the correct syntax. For example:
passwordFile = open(r'''C:UsersBobSecretPasswordFile.txt''')
No need for \ here – maintains readability and works well.
With Python 3 I had this problem:
self.path = 'T:PythonScriptsProjectsUtilities'
produced this error:
self.path = 'T:PythonScriptsProjectsUtilities'
^
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in
position 25-26: truncated UXXXXXXXX escape
the fix that worked is:
self.path = r'T:PythonScriptsProjectsUtilities'
It seems the ‘U’ was producing an error and the ‘r’ preceding the string turns off the eight-character Unicode escape (for a raw string) which was failing. (This is a bit of an over-simplification, but it works if you don’t care about unicode)
Hope this helps someone
path = pd.read_csv(**'C:UsersmraviDesktopfilename'**)
The error is because of the path that is mentioned
Add 'r' before the path
path = pd.read_csv(**r'C:UsersmraviDesktopfilename'**)
This would work fine.
I had this error.
I have a main python script which calls in functions from another, 2nd, python script.
At the end of the first script I had a comment block designated with ''' '''.
I was getting this error because of this commenting code block.
I repeated the error multiple times once I found it to ensure this was the error, & it was.
I am still unsure why.