In this tutorial, we’ll learn what Python string encode() method is and how to properly use it with the help of an easy and detailed Python code examples.
Outline
- Introduction: Python String encode() Method
- Syntax of encode() Method
- Parameters of encode() Method
- Example 1: Encode a String to Default Utf-8 Encoding
- Example 2: Using Error Parameter of Encoding
- Python String Encoding
- Conclusion
Introduction: Python String encode() Method
This method is used to return an encoded version of a string in Python.
Syntax of encode() Method
string.encode(encoding='UTF-8',errors='strict')
- Python string encode() method does not take any arguments by default.
- It converts and returns the string into a utf-8 encoded version.
- It can raise a unicodeDecodeError exception if something goes wrong or if it fails.
Parameters of encode() Method
Python string encode() method takes two parameters(optional). They are listed below:
- encoding – It is used to type a string has to be encoded to.
- errors – They are actually responses when the encoding fails. Listed below are the six type of error responses.
- strict – It is used for a default response which raises a UnicodeDecodeError exception when failure occurs.
- ignore – It ignores the unencodable unicode from the result.
- replace – It is use to replaces the unencodable unicode with a question mark ?
- xmlcharrefreplace – It inserts XML character reference instead of unencodable unicode.
- backslashreplace – Used to inserts a \uNNNN escape sequence instead of unencodable unicode.
- namereplace – It’s used to inserts a \N{…} escape sequence instead of unencodable unicode.
Example 1: Encode a String to Default Utf-8 Encoding
stringval='pythön!' // unicode string print(stringval.encode())
Output
b'pyth\xc3\xb6n!' //encoded version of string
Example 2: Using Error Parameter of Encoding
stringval='pythön!' print(stringval) print(stringval.encode("ascii", "ignore")) print(stringval.encode("ascii", "replace"))
Output
pythön! b'pythn!' // with ignore b'pyth?n!' // with replace
Practice it with other error parameters as well.
Python String Encoding
Since version 3.0 of Python, strings of characters are stored as Unicode, i.e. each character of a string is represented by a code point. So, each string consists of a sequence of Unicode code points.
The sequence of code points is converted into a set of bytes, known as encoding.
There is a wide variety of encodings that distinguish strings from one another. The commonly used encodings being utf-8, ascii, etc.
By using Python string encode() method, we can convert unicode strings into any encodings supported by Python. By default, Python makes use of utf-8 encoding.
Conclusion
To conclude this tutorial, hope you now have an in-depth practical knowledge of how to easily use Python string encode method. I’ll be looking forward to receive your valuable feedback on this post. Thank you for reading it.
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