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1:mod:`codecs` --- Codec registry and base classes
2=================================================
3
4.. module:: codecs
5   :synopsis: Encode and decode data and streams.
6
7.. moduleauthor:: Marc-André Lemburg <mal@lemburg.com>
8.. sectionauthor:: Marc-André Lemburg <mal@lemburg.com>
9.. sectionauthor:: Martin v. Löwis <martin@v.loewis.de>
10
11**Source code:** :source:`Lib/codecs.py`
12
13.. index::
14   single: Unicode
15   single: Codecs
16   pair: Codecs; encode
17   pair: Codecs; decode
18   single: streams
19   pair: stackable; streams
20
21--------------
22
23This module defines base classes for standard Python codecs (encoders and
24decoders) and provides access to the internal Python codec registry, which
25manages the codec and error handling lookup process. Most standard codecs
26are :term:`text encodings <text encoding>`, which encode text to bytes,
27but there are also codecs provided that encode text to text, and bytes to
28bytes. Custom codecs may encode and decode between arbitrary types, but some
29module features are restricted to use specifically with
30:term:`text encodings <text encoding>`, or with codecs that encode to
31:class:`bytes`.
32
33The module defines the following functions for encoding and decoding with
34any codec:
35
36.. function:: encode(obj, encoding='utf-8', errors='strict')
37
38   Encodes *obj* using the codec registered for *encoding*.
39
40   *Errors* may be given to set the desired error handling scheme. The
41   default error handler is ``'strict'`` meaning that encoding errors raise
42   :exc:`ValueError` (or a more codec specific subclass, such as
43   :exc:`UnicodeEncodeError`). Refer to :ref:`codec-base-classes` for more
44   information on codec error handling.
45
46.. function:: decode(obj, encoding='utf-8', errors='strict')
47
48   Decodes *obj* using the codec registered for *encoding*.
49
50   *Errors* may be given to set the desired error handling scheme. The
51   default error handler is ``'strict'`` meaning that decoding errors raise
52   :exc:`ValueError` (or a more codec specific subclass, such as
53   :exc:`UnicodeDecodeError`). Refer to :ref:`codec-base-classes` for more
54   information on codec error handling.
55
56The full details for each codec can also be looked up directly:
57
58.. function:: lookup(encoding)
59
60   Looks up the codec info in the Python codec registry and returns a
61   :class:`CodecInfo` object as defined below.
62
63   Encodings are first looked up in the registry's cache. If not found, the list of
64   registered search functions is scanned. If no :class:`CodecInfo` object is
65   found, a :exc:`LookupError` is raised. Otherwise, the :class:`CodecInfo` object
66   is stored in the cache and returned to the caller.
67
68.. class:: CodecInfo(encode, decode, streamreader=None, streamwriter=None, incrementalencoder=None, incrementaldecoder=None, name=None)
69
70   Codec details when looking up the codec registry. The constructor
71   arguments are stored in attributes of the same name:
72
73
74   .. attribute:: name
75
76      The name of the encoding.
77
78
79   .. attribute:: encode
80                  decode
81
82      The stateless encoding and decoding functions. These must be
83      functions or methods which have the same interface as
84      the :meth:`~Codec.encode` and :meth:`~Codec.decode` methods of Codec
85      instances (see :ref:`Codec Interface <codec-objects>`).
86      The functions or methods are expected to work in a stateless mode.
87
88
89   .. attribute:: incrementalencoder
90                  incrementaldecoder
91
92      Incremental encoder and decoder classes or factory functions.
93      These have to provide the interface defined by the base classes
94      :class:`IncrementalEncoder` and :class:`IncrementalDecoder`,
95      respectively. Incremental codecs can maintain state.
96
97
98   .. attribute:: streamwriter
99                  streamreader
100
101      Stream writer and reader classes or factory functions. These have to
102      provide the interface defined by the base classes
103      :class:`StreamWriter` and :class:`StreamReader`, respectively.
104      Stream codecs can maintain state.
105
106To simplify access to the various codec components, the module provides
107these additional functions which use :func:`lookup` for the codec lookup:
108
109.. function:: getencoder(encoding)
110
111   Look up the codec for the given encoding and return its encoder function.
112
113   Raises a :exc:`LookupError` in case the encoding cannot be found.
114
115
116.. function:: getdecoder(encoding)
117
118   Look up the codec for the given encoding and return its decoder function.
119
120   Raises a :exc:`LookupError` in case the encoding cannot be found.
121
122
123.. function:: getincrementalencoder(encoding)
124
125   Look up the codec for the given encoding and return its incremental encoder
126   class or factory function.
127
128   Raises a :exc:`LookupError` in case the encoding cannot be found or the codec
129   doesn't support an incremental encoder.
130
131
132.. function:: getincrementaldecoder(encoding)
133
134   Look up the codec for the given encoding and return its incremental decoder
135   class or factory function.
136
137   Raises a :exc:`LookupError` in case the encoding cannot be found or the codec
138   doesn't support an incremental decoder.
139
140
141.. function:: getreader(encoding)
142
143   Look up the codec for the given encoding and return its :class:`StreamReader`
144   class or factory function.
145
146   Raises a :exc:`LookupError` in case the encoding cannot be found.
147
148
149.. function:: getwriter(encoding)
150
151   Look up the codec for the given encoding and return its :class:`StreamWriter`
152   class or factory function.
153
154   Raises a :exc:`LookupError` in case the encoding cannot be found.
155
156Custom codecs are made available by registering a suitable codec search
157function:
158
159.. function:: register(search_function)
160
161   Register a codec search function. Search functions are expected to take one
162   argument, being the encoding name in all lower case letters with hyphens
163   and spaces converted to underscores, and return a :class:`CodecInfo` object.
164   In case a search function cannot find a given encoding, it should return
165   ``None``.
166
167   .. versionchanged:: 3.9
168      Hyphens and spaces are converted to underscore.
169
170
171.. function:: unregister(search_function)
172
173   Unregister a codec search function and clear the registry's cache.
174   If the search function is not registered, do nothing.
175
176   .. versionadded:: 3.10
177
178
179While the builtin :func:`open` and the associated :mod:`io` module are the
180recommended approach for working with encoded text files, this module
181provides additional utility functions and classes that allow the use of a
182wider range of codecs when working with binary files:
183
184.. function:: open(filename, mode='r', encoding=None, errors='strict', buffering=-1)
185
186   Open an encoded file using the given *mode* and return an instance of
187   :class:`StreamReaderWriter`, providing transparent encoding/decoding.
188   The default file mode is ``'r'``, meaning to open the file in read mode.
189
190   .. note::
191
192      Underlying encoded files are always opened in binary mode.
193      No automatic conversion of ``'\n'`` is done on reading and writing.
194      The *mode* argument may be any binary mode acceptable to the built-in
195      :func:`open` function; the ``'b'`` is automatically added.
196
197   *encoding* specifies the encoding which is to be used for the file.
198   Any encoding that encodes to and decodes from bytes is allowed, and
199   the data types supported by the file methods depend on the codec used.
200
201   *errors* may be given to define the error handling. It defaults to ``'strict'``
202   which causes a :exc:`ValueError` to be raised in case an encoding error occurs.
203
204   *buffering* has the same meaning as for the built-in :func:`open` function.
205   It defaults to -1 which means that the default buffer size will be used.
206
207
208.. function:: EncodedFile(file, data_encoding, file_encoding=None, errors='strict')
209
210   Return a :class:`StreamRecoder` instance, a wrapped version of *file*
211   which provides transparent transcoding. The original file is closed
212   when the wrapped version is closed.
213
214   Data written to the wrapped file is decoded according to the given
215   *data_encoding* and then written to the original file as bytes using
216   *file_encoding*. Bytes read from the original file are decoded
217   according to *file_encoding*, and the result is encoded
218   using *data_encoding*.
219
220   If *file_encoding* is not given, it defaults to *data_encoding*.
221
222   *errors* may be given to define the error handling. It defaults to
223   ``'strict'``, which causes :exc:`ValueError` to be raised in case an encoding
224   error occurs.
225
226
227.. function:: iterencode(iterator, encoding, errors='strict', **kwargs)
228
229   Uses an incremental encoder to iteratively encode the input provided by
230   *iterator*. This function is a :term:`generator`.
231   The *errors* argument (as well as any
232   other keyword argument) is passed through to the incremental encoder.
233
234   This function requires that the codec accept text :class:`str` objects
235   to encode. Therefore it does not support bytes-to-bytes encoders such as
236   ``base64_codec``.
237
238
239.. function:: iterdecode(iterator, encoding, errors='strict', **kwargs)
240
241   Uses an incremental decoder to iteratively decode the input provided by
242   *iterator*. This function is a :term:`generator`.
243   The *errors* argument (as well as any
244   other keyword argument) is passed through to the incremental decoder.
245
246   This function requires that the codec accept :class:`bytes` objects
247   to decode. Therefore it does not support text-to-text encoders such as
248   ``rot_13``, although ``rot_13`` may be used equivalently with
249   :func:`iterencode`.
250
251
252The module also provides the following constants which are useful for reading
253and writing to platform dependent files:
254
255
256.. data:: BOM
257          BOM_BE
258          BOM_LE
259          BOM_UTF8
260          BOM_UTF16
261          BOM_UTF16_BE
262          BOM_UTF16_LE
263          BOM_UTF32
264          BOM_UTF32_BE
265          BOM_UTF32_LE
266
267   These constants define various byte sequences,
268   being Unicode byte order marks (BOMs) for several encodings. They are
269   used in UTF-16 and UTF-32 data streams to indicate the byte order used,
270   and in UTF-8 as a Unicode signature. :const:`BOM_UTF16` is either
271   :const:`BOM_UTF16_BE` or :const:`BOM_UTF16_LE` depending on the platform's
272   native byte order, :const:`BOM` is an alias for :const:`BOM_UTF16`,
273   :const:`BOM_LE` for :const:`BOM_UTF16_LE` and :const:`BOM_BE` for
274   :const:`BOM_UTF16_BE`. The others represent the BOM in UTF-8 and UTF-32
275   encodings.
276
277
278.. _codec-base-classes:
279
280Codec Base Classes
281------------------
282
283The :mod:`codecs` module defines a set of base classes which define the
284interfaces for working with codec objects, and can also be used as the basis
285for custom codec implementations.
286
287Each codec has to define four interfaces to make it usable as codec in Python:
288stateless encoder, stateless decoder, stream reader and stream writer. The
289stream reader and writers typically reuse the stateless encoder/decoder to
290implement the file protocols. Codec authors also need to define how the
291codec will handle encoding and decoding errors.
292
293
294.. _surrogateescape:
295.. _error-handlers:
296
297Error Handlers
298^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
299
300To simplify and standardize error handling,
301codecs may implement different error handling schemes by
302accepting the *errors* string argument. The following string values are
303defined and implemented by all standard Python codecs:
304
305.. tabularcolumns:: |l|L|
306
307+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
308| Value                   | Meaning                                       |
309+=========================+===============================================+
310| ``'strict'``            | Raise :exc:`UnicodeError` (or a subclass);    |
311|                         | this is the default. Implemented in           |
312|                         | :func:`strict_errors`.                        |
313+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
314| ``'ignore'``            | Ignore the malformed data and continue        |
315|                         | without further notice. Implemented in        |
316|                         | :func:`ignore_errors`.                        |
317+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
318
319The following error handlers are only applicable to
320:term:`text encodings <text encoding>`:
321
322.. index::
323   single: ? (question mark); replacement character
324   single: \ (backslash); escape sequence
325   single: \x; escape sequence
326   single: \u; escape sequence
327   single: \U; escape sequence
328   single: \N; escape sequence
329
330+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
331| Value                   | Meaning                                       |
332+=========================+===============================================+
333| ``'replace'``           | Replace with a suitable replacement           |
334|                         | marker; Python will use the official          |
335|                         | ``U+FFFD`` REPLACEMENT CHARACTER for the      |
336|                         | built-in codecs on decoding, and '?' on       |
337|                         | encoding. Implemented in                      |
338|                         | :func:`replace_errors`.                       |
339+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
340| ``'xmlcharrefreplace'`` | Replace with the appropriate XML character    |
341|                         | reference (only for encoding). Implemented    |
342|                         | in :func:`xmlcharrefreplace_errors`.          |
343+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
344| ``'backslashreplace'``  | Replace with backslashed escape sequences.    |
345|                         | Implemented in                                |
346|                         | :func:`backslashreplace_errors`.              |
347+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
348| ``'namereplace'``       | Replace with ``\N{...}`` escape sequences     |
349|                         | (only for encoding). Implemented in           |
350|                         | :func:`namereplace_errors`.                   |
351+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
352| ``'surrogateescape'``   | On decoding, replace byte with individual     |
353|                         | surrogate code ranging from ``U+DC80`` to     |
354|                         | ``U+DCFF``. This code will then be turned     |
355|                         | back into the same byte when the              |
356|                         | ``'surrogateescape'`` error handler is used   |
357|                         | when encoding the data. (See :pep:`383` for   |
358|                         | more.)                                        |
359+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
360
361In addition, the following error handler is specific to the given codecs:
362
363+-------------------+------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
364| Value             | Codecs                 | Meaning                                   |
365+===================+========================+===========================================+
366|``'surrogatepass'``| utf-8, utf-16, utf-32, | Allow encoding and decoding of surrogate  |
367|                   | utf-16-be, utf-16-le,  | codes. These codecs normally treat the    |
368|                   | utf-32-be, utf-32-le   | presence of surrogates as an error.       |
369+-------------------+------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
370
371.. versionadded:: 3.1
372   The ``'surrogateescape'`` and ``'surrogatepass'`` error handlers.
373
374.. versionchanged:: 3.4
375   The ``'surrogatepass'`` error handlers now works with utf-16\* and utf-32\* codecs.
376
377.. versionadded:: 3.5
378   The ``'namereplace'`` error handler.
379
380.. versionchanged:: 3.5
381   The ``'backslashreplace'`` error handlers now works with decoding and
382   translating.
383
384The set of allowed values can be extended by registering a new named error
385handler:
386
387.. function:: register_error(name, error_handler)
388
389   Register the error handling function *error_handler* under the name *name*.
390   The *error_handler* argument will be called during encoding and decoding
391   in case of an error, when *name* is specified as the errors parameter.
392
393   For encoding, *error_handler* will be called with a :exc:`UnicodeEncodeError`
394   instance, which contains information about the location of the error. The
395   error handler must either raise this or a different exception, or return a
396   tuple with a replacement for the unencodable part of the input and a position
397   where encoding should continue. The replacement may be either :class:`str` or
398   :class:`bytes`. If the replacement is bytes, the encoder will simply copy
399   them into the output buffer. If the replacement is a string, the encoder will
400   encode the replacement. Encoding continues on original input at the
401   specified position. Negative position values will be treated as being
402   relative to the end of the input string. If the resulting position is out of
403   bound an :exc:`IndexError` will be raised.
404
405   Decoding and translating works similarly, except :exc:`UnicodeDecodeError` or
406   :exc:`UnicodeTranslateError` will be passed to the handler and that the
407   replacement from the error handler will be put into the output directly.
408
409
410Previously registered error handlers (including the standard error handlers)
411can be looked up by name:
412
413.. function:: lookup_error(name)
414
415   Return the error handler previously registered under the name *name*.
416
417   Raises a :exc:`LookupError` in case the handler cannot be found.
418
419The following standard error handlers are also made available as module level
420functions:
421
422.. function:: strict_errors(exception)
423
424   Implements the ``'strict'`` error handling: each encoding or
425   decoding error raises a :exc:`UnicodeError`.
426
427
428.. function:: replace_errors(exception)
429
430   Implements the ``'replace'`` error handling (for :term:`text encodings
431   <text encoding>` only): substitutes ``'?'`` for encoding errors
432   (to be encoded by the codec), and ``'\ufffd'`` (the Unicode replacement
433   character) for decoding errors.
434
435
436.. function:: ignore_errors(exception)
437
438   Implements the ``'ignore'`` error handling: malformed data is ignored and
439   encoding or decoding is continued without further notice.
440
441
442.. function:: xmlcharrefreplace_errors(exception)
443
444   Implements the ``'xmlcharrefreplace'`` error handling (for encoding with
445   :term:`text encodings <text encoding>` only): the
446   unencodable character is replaced by an appropriate XML character reference.
447
448
449.. function:: backslashreplace_errors(exception)
450
451   Implements the ``'backslashreplace'`` error handling (for
452   :term:`text encodings <text encoding>` only): malformed data is
453   replaced by a backslashed escape sequence.
454
455.. function:: namereplace_errors(exception)
456
457   Implements the ``'namereplace'`` error handling (for encoding with
458   :term:`text encodings <text encoding>` only): the
459   unencodable character is replaced by a ``\N{...}`` escape sequence.
460
461   .. versionadded:: 3.5
462
463
464.. _codec-objects:
465
466Stateless Encoding and Decoding
467^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
468
469The base :class:`Codec` class defines these methods which also define the
470function interfaces of the stateless encoder and decoder:
471
472
473.. method:: Codec.encode(input[, errors])
474
475   Encodes the object *input* and returns a tuple (output object, length consumed).
476   For instance, :term:`text encoding` converts
477   a string object to a bytes object using a particular
478   character set encoding (e.g., ``cp1252`` or ``iso-8859-1``).
479
480   The *errors* argument defines the error handling to apply.
481   It defaults to ``'strict'`` handling.
482
483   The method may not store state in the :class:`Codec` instance. Use
484   :class:`StreamWriter` for codecs which have to keep state in order to make
485   encoding efficient.
486
487   The encoder must be able to handle zero length input and return an empty object
488   of the output object type in this situation.
489
490
491.. method:: Codec.decode(input[, errors])
492
493   Decodes the object *input* and returns a tuple (output object, length
494   consumed). For instance, for a :term:`text encoding`, decoding converts
495   a bytes object encoded using a particular
496   character set encoding to a string object.
497
498   For text encodings and bytes-to-bytes codecs,
499   *input* must be a bytes object or one which provides the read-only
500   buffer interface -- for example, buffer objects and memory mapped files.
501
502   The *errors* argument defines the error handling to apply.
503   It defaults to ``'strict'`` handling.
504
505   The method may not store state in the :class:`Codec` instance. Use
506   :class:`StreamReader` for codecs which have to keep state in order to make
507   decoding efficient.
508
509   The decoder must be able to handle zero length input and return an empty object
510   of the output object type in this situation.
511
512
513Incremental Encoding and Decoding
514^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
515
516The :class:`IncrementalEncoder` and :class:`IncrementalDecoder` classes provide
517the basic interface for incremental encoding and decoding. Encoding/decoding the
518input isn't done with one call to the stateless encoder/decoder function, but
519with multiple calls to the
520:meth:`~IncrementalEncoder.encode`/:meth:`~IncrementalDecoder.decode` method of
521the incremental encoder/decoder. The incremental encoder/decoder keeps track of
522the encoding/decoding process during method calls.
523
524The joined output of calls to the
525:meth:`~IncrementalEncoder.encode`/:meth:`~IncrementalDecoder.decode` method is
526the same as if all the single inputs were joined into one, and this input was
527encoded/decoded with the stateless encoder/decoder.
528
529
530.. _incremental-encoder-objects:
531
532IncrementalEncoder Objects
533~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
534
535The :class:`IncrementalEncoder` class is used for encoding an input in multiple
536steps. It defines the following methods which every incremental encoder must
537define in order to be compatible with the Python codec registry.
538
539
540.. class:: IncrementalEncoder(errors='strict')
541
542   Constructor for an :class:`IncrementalEncoder` instance.
543
544   All incremental encoders must provide this constructor interface. They are free
545   to add additional keyword arguments, but only the ones defined here are used by
546   the Python codec registry.
547
548   The :class:`IncrementalEncoder` may implement different error handling schemes
549   by providing the *errors* keyword argument. See :ref:`error-handlers` for
550   possible values.
551
552   The *errors* argument will be assigned to an attribute of the same name.
553   Assigning to this attribute makes it possible to switch between different error
554   handling strategies during the lifetime of the :class:`IncrementalEncoder`
555   object.
556
557
558   .. method:: encode(object[, final])
559
560      Encodes *object* (taking the current state of the encoder into account)
561      and returns the resulting encoded object. If this is the last call to
562      :meth:`encode` *final* must be true (the default is false).
563
564
565   .. method:: reset()
566
567      Reset the encoder to the initial state. The output is discarded: call
568      ``.encode(object, final=True)``, passing an empty byte or text string
569      if necessary, to reset the encoder and to get the output.
570
571
572   .. method:: getstate()
573
574      Return the current state of the encoder which must be an integer. The
575      implementation should make sure that ``0`` is the most common
576      state. (States that are more complicated than integers can be converted
577      into an integer by marshaling/pickling the state and encoding the bytes
578      of the resulting string into an integer.)
579
580
581   .. method:: setstate(state)
582
583      Set the state of the encoder to *state*. *state* must be an encoder state
584      returned by :meth:`getstate`.
585
586
587.. _incremental-decoder-objects:
588
589IncrementalDecoder Objects
590~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
591
592The :class:`IncrementalDecoder` class is used for decoding an input in multiple
593steps. It defines the following methods which every incremental decoder must
594define in order to be compatible with the Python codec registry.
595
596
597.. class:: IncrementalDecoder(errors='strict')
598
599   Constructor for an :class:`IncrementalDecoder` instance.
600
601   All incremental decoders must provide this constructor interface. They are free
602   to add additional keyword arguments, but only the ones defined here are used by
603   the Python codec registry.
604
605   The :class:`IncrementalDecoder` may implement different error handling schemes
606   by providing the *errors* keyword argument. See :ref:`error-handlers` for
607   possible values.
608
609   The *errors* argument will be assigned to an attribute of the same name.
610   Assigning to this attribute makes it possible to switch between different error
611   handling strategies during the lifetime of the :class:`IncrementalDecoder`
612   object.
613
614
615   .. method:: decode(object[, final])
616
617      Decodes *object* (taking the current state of the decoder into account)
618      and returns the resulting decoded object. If this is the last call to
619      :meth:`decode` *final* must be true (the default is false). If *final* is
620      true the decoder must decode the input completely and must flush all
621      buffers. If this isn't possible (e.g. because of incomplete byte sequences
622      at the end of the input) it must initiate error handling just like in the
623      stateless case (which might raise an exception).
624
625
626   .. method:: reset()
627
628      Reset the decoder to the initial state.
629
630
631   .. method:: getstate()
632
633      Return the current state of the decoder. This must be a tuple with two
634      items, the first must be the buffer containing the still undecoded
635      input. The second must be an integer and can be additional state
636      info. (The implementation should make sure that ``0`` is the most common
637      additional state info.) If this additional state info is ``0`` it must be
638      possible to set the decoder to the state which has no input buffered and
639      ``0`` as the additional state info, so that feeding the previously
640      buffered input to the decoder returns it to the previous state without
641      producing any output. (Additional state info that is more complicated than
642      integers can be converted into an integer by marshaling/pickling the info
643      and encoding the bytes of the resulting string into an integer.)
644
645
646   .. method:: setstate(state)
647
648      Set the state of the decoder to *state*. *state* must be a decoder state
649      returned by :meth:`getstate`.
650
651
652Stream Encoding and Decoding
653^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
654
655
656The :class:`StreamWriter` and :class:`StreamReader` classes provide generic
657working interfaces which can be used to implement new encoding submodules very
658easily. See :mod:`encodings.utf_8` for an example of how this is done.
659
660
661.. _stream-writer-objects:
662
663StreamWriter Objects
664~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
665
666The :class:`StreamWriter` class is a subclass of :class:`Codec` and defines the
667following methods which every stream writer must define in order to be
668compatible with the Python codec registry.
669
670
671.. class:: StreamWriter(stream, errors='strict')
672
673   Constructor for a :class:`StreamWriter` instance.
674
675   All stream writers must provide this constructor interface. They are free to add
676   additional keyword arguments, but only the ones defined here are used by the
677   Python codec registry.
678
679   The *stream* argument must be a file-like object open for writing
680   text or binary data, as appropriate for the specific codec.
681
682   The :class:`StreamWriter` may implement different error handling schemes by
683   providing the *errors* keyword argument. See :ref:`error-handlers` for
684   the standard error handlers the underlying stream codec may support.
685
686   The *errors* argument will be assigned to an attribute of the same name.
687   Assigning to this attribute makes it possible to switch between different error
688   handling strategies during the lifetime of the :class:`StreamWriter` object.
689
690   .. method:: write(object)
691
692      Writes the object's contents encoded to the stream.
693
694
695   .. method:: writelines(list)
696
697      Writes the concatenated list of strings to the stream (possibly by reusing
698      the :meth:`write` method). The standard bytes-to-bytes codecs
699      do not support this method.
700
701
702   .. method:: reset()
703
704      Resets the codec buffers used for keeping internal state.
705
706      Calling this method should ensure that the data on the output is put into
707      a clean state that allows appending of new fresh data without having to
708      rescan the whole stream to recover state.
709
710
711In addition to the above methods, the :class:`StreamWriter` must also inherit
712all other methods and attributes from the underlying stream.
713
714
715.. _stream-reader-objects:
716
717StreamReader Objects
718~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
719
720The :class:`StreamReader` class is a subclass of :class:`Codec` and defines the
721following methods which every stream reader must define in order to be
722compatible with the Python codec registry.
723
724
725.. class:: StreamReader(stream, errors='strict')
726
727   Constructor for a :class:`StreamReader` instance.
728
729   All stream readers must provide this constructor interface. They are free to add
730   additional keyword arguments, but only the ones defined here are used by the
731   Python codec registry.
732
733   The *stream* argument must be a file-like object open for reading
734   text or binary data, as appropriate for the specific codec.
735
736   The :class:`StreamReader` may implement different error handling schemes by
737   providing the *errors* keyword argument. See :ref:`error-handlers` for
738   the standard error handlers the underlying stream codec may support.
739
740   The *errors* argument will be assigned to an attribute of the same name.
741   Assigning to this attribute makes it possible to switch between different error
742   handling strategies during the lifetime of the :class:`StreamReader` object.
743
744   The set of allowed values for the *errors* argument can be extended with
745   :func:`register_error`.
746
747
748   .. method:: read([size[, chars, [firstline]]])
749
750      Decodes data from the stream and returns the resulting object.
751
752      The *chars* argument indicates the number of decoded
753      code points or bytes to return. The :func:`read` method will
754      never return more data than requested, but it might return less,
755      if there is not enough available.
756
757      The *size* argument indicates the approximate maximum
758      number of encoded bytes or code points to read
759      for decoding. The decoder can modify this setting as
760      appropriate. The default value -1 indicates to read and decode as much as
761      possible. This parameter is intended to
762      prevent having to decode huge files in one step.
763
764      The *firstline* flag indicates that
765      it would be sufficient to only return the first
766      line, if there are decoding errors on later lines.
767
768      The method should use a greedy read strategy meaning that it should read
769      as much data as is allowed within the definition of the encoding and the
770      given size, e.g.  if optional encoding endings or state markers are
771      available on the stream, these should be read too.
772
773
774   .. method:: readline([size[, keepends]])
775
776      Read one line from the input stream and return the decoded data.
777
778      *size*, if given, is passed as size argument to the stream's
779      :meth:`read` method.
780
781      If *keepends* is false line-endings will be stripped from the lines
782      returned.
783
784
785   .. method:: readlines([sizehint[, keepends]])
786
787      Read all lines available on the input stream and return them as a list of
788      lines.
789
790      Line-endings are implemented using the codec's :meth:`decode` method and
791      are included in the list entries if *keepends* is true.
792
793      *sizehint*, if given, is passed as the *size* argument to the stream's
794      :meth:`read` method.
795
796
797   .. method:: reset()
798
799      Resets the codec buffers used for keeping internal state.
800
801      Note that no stream repositioning should take place. This method is
802      primarily intended to be able to recover from decoding errors.
803
804
805In addition to the above methods, the :class:`StreamReader` must also inherit
806all other methods and attributes from the underlying stream.
807
808.. _stream-reader-writer:
809
810StreamReaderWriter Objects
811~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
812
813The :class:`StreamReaderWriter` is a convenience class that allows wrapping
814streams which work in both read and write modes.
815
816The design is such that one can use the factory functions returned by the
817:func:`lookup` function to construct the instance.
818
819
820.. class:: StreamReaderWriter(stream, Reader, Writer, errors='strict')
821
822   Creates a :class:`StreamReaderWriter` instance. *stream* must be a file-like
823   object. *Reader* and *Writer* must be factory functions or classes providing the
824   :class:`StreamReader` and :class:`StreamWriter` interface resp. Error handling
825   is done in the same way as defined for the stream readers and writers.
826
827:class:`StreamReaderWriter` instances define the combined interfaces of
828:class:`StreamReader` and :class:`StreamWriter` classes. They inherit all other
829methods and attributes from the underlying stream.
830
831
832.. _stream-recoder-objects:
833
834StreamRecoder Objects
835~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
836
837The :class:`StreamRecoder` translates data from one encoding to another,
838which is sometimes useful when dealing with different encoding environments.
839
840The design is such that one can use the factory functions returned by the
841:func:`lookup` function to construct the instance.
842
843
844.. class:: StreamRecoder(stream, encode, decode, Reader, Writer, errors='strict')
845
846   Creates a :class:`StreamRecoder` instance which implements a two-way conversion:
847   *encode* and *decode* work on the frontend — the data visible to
848   code calling :meth:`read` and :meth:`write`, while *Reader* and *Writer*
849   work on the backend — the data in *stream*.
850
851   You can use these objects to do transparent transcodings, e.g., from Latin-1
852   to UTF-8 and back.
853
854   The *stream* argument must be a file-like object.
855
856   The *encode* and *decode* arguments must
857   adhere to the :class:`Codec` interface. *Reader* and
858   *Writer* must be factory functions or classes providing objects of the
859   :class:`StreamReader` and :class:`StreamWriter` interface respectively.
860
861   Error handling is done in the same way as defined for the stream readers and
862   writers.
863
864
865:class:`StreamRecoder` instances define the combined interfaces of
866:class:`StreamReader` and :class:`StreamWriter` classes. They inherit all other
867methods and attributes from the underlying stream.
868
869
870.. _encodings-overview:
871
872Encodings and Unicode
873---------------------
874
875Strings are stored internally as sequences of code points in
876range ``0x0``--``0x10FFFF``. (See :pep:`393` for
877more details about the implementation.)
878Once a string object is used outside of CPU and memory, endianness
879and how these arrays are stored as bytes become an issue. As with other
880codecs, serialising a string into a sequence of bytes is known as *encoding*,
881and recreating the string from the sequence of bytes is known as *decoding*.
882There are a variety of different text serialisation codecs, which are
883collectivity referred to as :term:`text encodings <text encoding>`.
884
885The simplest text encoding (called ``'latin-1'`` or ``'iso-8859-1'``) maps
886the code points 0--255 to the bytes ``0x0``--``0xff``, which means that a string
887object that contains code points above ``U+00FF`` can't be encoded with this
888codec. Doing so will raise a :exc:`UnicodeEncodeError` that looks
889like the following (although the details of the error message may differ):
890``UnicodeEncodeError: 'latin-1' codec can't encode character '\u1234' in
891position 3: ordinal not in range(256)``.
892
893There's another group of encodings (the so called charmap encodings) that choose
894a different subset of all Unicode code points and how these code points are
895mapped to the bytes ``0x0``--``0xff``. To see how this is done simply open
896e.g. :file:`encodings/cp1252.py` (which is an encoding that is used primarily on
897Windows). There's a string constant with 256 characters that shows you which
898character is mapped to which byte value.
899
900All of these encodings can only encode 256 of the 1114112 code points
901defined in Unicode. A simple and straightforward way that can store each Unicode
902code point, is to store each code point as four consecutive bytes. There are two
903possibilities: store the bytes in big endian or in little endian order. These
904two encodings are called ``UTF-32-BE`` and ``UTF-32-LE`` respectively. Their
905disadvantage is that if e.g. you use ``UTF-32-BE`` on a little endian machine you
906will always have to swap bytes on encoding and decoding. ``UTF-32`` avoids this
907problem: bytes will always be in natural endianness. When these bytes are read
908by a CPU with a different endianness, then bytes have to be swapped though. To
909be able to detect the endianness of a ``UTF-16`` or ``UTF-32`` byte sequence,
910there's the so called BOM ("Byte Order Mark"). This is the Unicode character
911``U+FEFF``. This character can be prepended to every ``UTF-16`` or ``UTF-32``
912byte sequence. The byte swapped version of this character (``0xFFFE``) is an
913illegal character that may not appear in a Unicode text. So when the
914first character in an ``UTF-16`` or ``UTF-32`` byte sequence
915appears to be a ``U+FFFE`` the bytes have to be swapped on decoding.
916Unfortunately the character ``U+FEFF`` had a second purpose as
917a ``ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE``: a character that has no width and doesn't allow
918a word to be split. It can e.g. be used to give hints to a ligature algorithm.
919With Unicode 4.0 using ``U+FEFF`` as a ``ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE`` has been
920deprecated (with ``U+2060`` (``WORD JOINER``) assuming this role). Nevertheless
921Unicode software still must be able to handle ``U+FEFF`` in both roles: as a BOM
922it's a device to determine the storage layout of the encoded bytes, and vanishes
923once the byte sequence has been decoded into a string; as a ``ZERO WIDTH
924NO-BREAK SPACE`` it's a normal character that will be decoded like any other.
925
926There's another encoding that is able to encode the full range of Unicode
927characters: UTF-8. UTF-8 is an 8-bit encoding, which means there are no issues
928with byte order in UTF-8. Each byte in a UTF-8 byte sequence consists of two
929parts: marker bits (the most significant bits) and payload bits. The marker bits
930are a sequence of zero to four ``1`` bits followed by a ``0`` bit. Unicode characters are
931encoded like this (with x being payload bits, which when concatenated give the
932Unicode character):
933
934+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+
935| Range                             | Encoding                                     |
936+===================================+==============================================+
937| ``U-00000000`` ... ``U-0000007F`` | 0xxxxxxx                                     |
938+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+
939| ``U-00000080`` ... ``U-000007FF`` | 110xxxxx 10xxxxxx                            |
940+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+
941| ``U-00000800`` ... ``U-0000FFFF`` | 1110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx                   |
942+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+
943| ``U-00010000`` ... ``U-0010FFFF`` | 11110xxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx          |
944+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------------------+
945
946The least significant bit of the Unicode character is the rightmost x bit.
947
948As UTF-8 is an 8-bit encoding no BOM is required and any ``U+FEFF`` character in
949the decoded string (even if it's the first character) is treated as a ``ZERO
950WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE``.
951
952Without external information it's impossible to reliably determine which
953encoding was used for encoding a string. Each charmap encoding can
954decode any random byte sequence. However that's not possible with UTF-8, as
955UTF-8 byte sequences have a structure that doesn't allow arbitrary byte
956sequences. To increase the reliability with which a UTF-8 encoding can be
957detected, Microsoft invented a variant of UTF-8 (that Python 2.5 calls
958``"utf-8-sig"``) for its Notepad program: Before any of the Unicode characters
959is written to the file, a UTF-8 encoded BOM (which looks like this as a byte
960sequence: ``0xef``, ``0xbb``, ``0xbf``) is written. As it's rather improbable
961that any charmap encoded file starts with these byte values (which would e.g.
962map to
963
964   | LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS
965   | RIGHT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
966   | INVERTED QUESTION MARK
967
968in iso-8859-1), this increases the probability that a ``utf-8-sig`` encoding can be
969correctly guessed from the byte sequence. So here the BOM is not used to be able
970to determine the byte order used for generating the byte sequence, but as a
971signature that helps in guessing the encoding. On encoding the utf-8-sig codec
972will write ``0xef``, ``0xbb``, ``0xbf`` as the first three bytes to the file. On
973decoding ``utf-8-sig`` will skip those three bytes if they appear as the first
974three bytes in the file. In UTF-8, the use of the BOM is discouraged and
975should generally be avoided.
976
977
978.. _standard-encodings:
979
980Standard Encodings
981------------------
982
983Python comes with a number of codecs built-in, either implemented as C functions
984or with dictionaries as mapping tables. The following table lists the codecs by
985name, together with a few common aliases, and the languages for which the
986encoding is likely used. Neither the list of aliases nor the list of languages
987is meant to be exhaustive. Notice that spelling alternatives that only differ in
988case or use a hyphen instead of an underscore are also valid aliases; therefore,
989e.g. ``'utf-8'`` is a valid alias for the ``'utf_8'`` codec.
990
991.. impl-detail::
992
993   Some common encodings can bypass the codecs lookup machinery to
994   improve performance. These optimization opportunities are only
995   recognized by CPython for a limited set of (case insensitive)
996   aliases: utf-8, utf8, latin-1, latin1, iso-8859-1, iso8859-1, mbcs
997   (Windows only), ascii, us-ascii, utf-16, utf16, utf-32, utf32, and
998   the same using underscores instead of dashes. Using alternative
999   aliases for these encodings may result in slower execution.
1000
1001   .. versionchanged:: 3.6
1002      Optimization opportunity recognized for us-ascii.
1003
1004Many of the character sets support the same languages. They vary in individual
1005characters (e.g. whether the EURO SIGN is supported or not), and in the
1006assignment of characters to code positions. For the European languages in
1007particular, the following variants typically exist:
1008
1009* an ISO 8859 codeset
1010
1011* a Microsoft Windows code page, which is typically derived from an 8859 codeset,
1012  but replaces control characters with additional graphic characters
1013
1014* an IBM EBCDIC code page
1015
1016* an IBM PC code page, which is ASCII compatible
1017
1018.. tabularcolumns:: |l|p{0.3\linewidth}|p{0.3\linewidth}|
1019
1020+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1021| Codec           | Aliases                        | Languages                      |
1022+=================+================================+================================+
1023| ascii           | 646, us-ascii                  | English                        |
1024+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1025| big5            | big5-tw, csbig5                | Traditional Chinese            |
1026+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1027| big5hkscs       | big5-hkscs, hkscs              | Traditional Chinese            |
1028+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1029| cp037           | IBM037, IBM039                 | English                        |
1030+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1031| cp273           | 273, IBM273, csIBM273          | German                         |
1032|                 |                                |                                |
1033|                 |                                | .. versionadded:: 3.4          |
1034+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1035| cp424           | EBCDIC-CP-HE, IBM424           | Hebrew                         |
1036+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1037| cp437           | 437, IBM437                    | English                        |
1038+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1039| cp500           | EBCDIC-CP-BE, EBCDIC-CP-CH,    | Western Europe                 |
1040|                 | IBM500                         |                                |
1041+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1042| cp720           |                                | Arabic                         |
1043+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1044| cp737           |                                | Greek                          |
1045+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1046| cp775           | IBM775                         | Baltic languages               |
1047+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1048| cp850           | 850, IBM850                    | Western Europe                 |
1049+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1050| cp852           | 852, IBM852                    | Central and Eastern Europe     |
1051+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1052| cp855           | 855, IBM855                    | Bulgarian, Byelorussian,       |
1053|                 |                                | Macedonian, Russian, Serbian   |
1054+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1055| cp856           |                                | Hebrew                         |
1056+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1057| cp857           | 857, IBM857                    | Turkish                        |
1058+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1059| cp858           | 858, IBM858                    | Western Europe                 |
1060+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1061| cp860           | 860, IBM860                    | Portuguese                     |
1062+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1063| cp861           | 861, CP-IS, IBM861             | Icelandic                      |
1064+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1065| cp862           | 862, IBM862                    | Hebrew                         |
1066+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1067| cp863           | 863, IBM863                    | Canadian                       |
1068+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1069| cp864           | IBM864                         | Arabic                         |
1070+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1071| cp865           | 865, IBM865                    | Danish, Norwegian              |
1072+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1073| cp866           | 866, IBM866                    | Russian                        |
1074+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1075| cp869           | 869, CP-GR, IBM869             | Greek                          |
1076+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1077| cp874           |                                | Thai                           |
1078+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1079| cp875           |                                | Greek                          |
1080+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1081| cp932           | 932, ms932, mskanji, ms-kanji  | Japanese                       |
1082+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1083| cp949           | 949, ms949, uhc                | Korean                         |
1084+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1085| cp950           | 950, ms950                     | Traditional Chinese            |
1086+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1087| cp1006          |                                | Urdu                           |
1088+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1089| cp1026          | ibm1026                        | Turkish                        |
1090+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1091| cp1125          | 1125, ibm1125, cp866u, ruscii  | Ukrainian                      |
1092|                 |                                |                                |
1093|                 |                                | .. versionadded:: 3.4          |
1094+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1095| cp1140          | ibm1140                        | Western Europe                 |
1096+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1097| cp1250          | windows-1250                   | Central and Eastern Europe     |
1098+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1099| cp1251          | windows-1251                   | Bulgarian, Byelorussian,       |
1100|                 |                                | Macedonian, Russian, Serbian   |
1101+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1102| cp1252          | windows-1252                   | Western Europe                 |
1103+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1104| cp1253          | windows-1253                   | Greek                          |
1105+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1106| cp1254          | windows-1254                   | Turkish                        |
1107+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1108| cp1255          | windows-1255                   | Hebrew                         |
1109+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1110| cp1256          | windows-1256                   | Arabic                         |
1111+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1112| cp1257          | windows-1257                   | Baltic languages               |
1113+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1114| cp1258          | windows-1258                   | Vietnamese                     |
1115+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1116| euc_jp          | eucjp, ujis, u-jis             | Japanese                       |
1117+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1118| euc_jis_2004    | jisx0213, eucjis2004           | Japanese                       |
1119+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1120| euc_jisx0213    | eucjisx0213                    | Japanese                       |
1121+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1122| euc_kr          | euckr, korean, ksc5601,        | Korean                         |
1123|                 | ks_c-5601, ks_c-5601-1987,     |                                |
1124|                 | ksx1001, ks_x-1001             |                                |
1125+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1126| gb2312          | chinese, csiso58gb231280,      | Simplified Chinese             |
1127|                 | euc-cn, euccn, eucgb2312-cn,   |                                |
1128|                 | gb2312-1980, gb2312-80,        |                                |
1129|                 | iso-ir-58                      |                                |
1130+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1131| gbk             | 936, cp936, ms936              | Unified Chinese                |
1132+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1133| gb18030         | gb18030-2000                   | Unified Chinese                |
1134+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1135| hz              | hzgb, hz-gb, hz-gb-2312        | Simplified Chinese             |
1136+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1137| iso2022_jp      | csiso2022jp, iso2022jp,        | Japanese                       |
1138|                 | iso-2022-jp                    |                                |
1139+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1140| iso2022_jp_1    | iso2022jp-1, iso-2022-jp-1     | Japanese                       |
1141+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1142| iso2022_jp_2    | iso2022jp-2, iso-2022-jp-2     | Japanese, Korean, Simplified   |
1143|                 |                                | Chinese, Western Europe, Greek |
1144+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1145| iso2022_jp_2004 | iso2022jp-2004,                | Japanese                       |
1146|                 | iso-2022-jp-2004               |                                |
1147+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1148| iso2022_jp_3    | iso2022jp-3, iso-2022-jp-3     | Japanese                       |
1149+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1150| iso2022_jp_ext  | iso2022jp-ext, iso-2022-jp-ext | Japanese                       |
1151+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1152| iso2022_kr      | csiso2022kr, iso2022kr,        | Korean                         |
1153|                 | iso-2022-kr                    |                                |
1154+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1155| latin_1         | iso-8859-1, iso8859-1, 8859,   | Western Europe                 |
1156|                 | cp819, latin, latin1, L1       |                                |
1157+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1158| iso8859_2       | iso-8859-2, latin2, L2         | Central and Eastern Europe     |
1159+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1160| iso8859_3       | iso-8859-3, latin3, L3         | Esperanto, Maltese             |
1161+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1162| iso8859_4       | iso-8859-4, latin4, L4         | Baltic languages               |
1163+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1164| iso8859_5       | iso-8859-5, cyrillic           | Bulgarian, Byelorussian,       |
1165|                 |                                | Macedonian, Russian, Serbian   |
1166+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1167| iso8859_6       | iso-8859-6, arabic             | Arabic                         |
1168+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1169| iso8859_7       | iso-8859-7, greek, greek8      | Greek                          |
1170+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1171| iso8859_8       | iso-8859-8, hebrew             | Hebrew                         |
1172+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1173| iso8859_9       | iso-8859-9, latin5, L5         | Turkish                        |
1174+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1175| iso8859_10      | iso-8859-10, latin6, L6        | Nordic languages               |
1176+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1177| iso8859_11      | iso-8859-11, thai              | Thai languages                 |
1178+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1179| iso8859_13      | iso-8859-13, latin7, L7        | Baltic languages               |
1180+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1181| iso8859_14      | iso-8859-14, latin8, L8        | Celtic languages               |
1182+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1183| iso8859_15      | iso-8859-15, latin9, L9        | Western Europe                 |
1184+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1185| iso8859_16      | iso-8859-16, latin10, L10      | South-Eastern Europe           |
1186+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1187| johab           | cp1361, ms1361                 | Korean                         |
1188+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1189| koi8_r          |                                | Russian                        |
1190+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1191| koi8_t          |                                | Tajik                          |
1192|                 |                                |                                |
1193|                 |                                | .. versionadded:: 3.5          |
1194+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1195| koi8_u          |                                | Ukrainian                      |
1196+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1197| kz1048          | kz_1048, strk1048_2002, rk1048 | Kazakh                         |
1198|                 |                                |                                |
1199|                 |                                | .. versionadded:: 3.5          |
1200+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1201| mac_cyrillic    | maccyrillic                    | Bulgarian, Byelorussian,       |
1202|                 |                                | Macedonian, Russian, Serbian   |
1203+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1204| mac_greek       | macgreek                       | Greek                          |
1205+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1206| mac_iceland     | maciceland                     | Icelandic                      |
1207+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1208| mac_latin2      | maclatin2, maccentraleurope,   | Central and Eastern Europe     |
1209|                 | mac_centeuro                   |                                |
1210+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1211| mac_roman       | macroman, macintosh            | Western Europe                 |
1212+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1213| mac_turkish     | macturkish                     | Turkish                        |
1214+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1215| ptcp154         | csptcp154, pt154, cp154,       | Kazakh                         |
1216|                 | cyrillic-asian                 |                                |
1217+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1218| shift_jis       | csshiftjis, shiftjis, sjis,    | Japanese                       |
1219|                 | s_jis                          |                                |
1220+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1221| shift_jis_2004  | shiftjis2004, sjis_2004,       | Japanese                       |
1222|                 | sjis2004                       |                                |
1223+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1224| shift_jisx0213  | shiftjisx0213, sjisx0213,      | Japanese                       |
1225|                 | s_jisx0213                     |                                |
1226+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1227| utf_32          | U32, utf32                     | all languages                  |
1228+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1229| utf_32_be       | UTF-32BE                       | all languages                  |
1230+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1231| utf_32_le       | UTF-32LE                       | all languages                  |
1232+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1233| utf_16          | U16, utf16                     | all languages                  |
1234+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1235| utf_16_be       | UTF-16BE                       | all languages                  |
1236+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1237| utf_16_le       | UTF-16LE                       | all languages                  |
1238+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1239| utf_7           | U7, unicode-1-1-utf-7          | all languages                  |
1240+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1241| utf_8           | U8, UTF, utf8, cp65001         | all languages                  |
1242+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1243| utf_8_sig       |                                | all languages                  |
1244+-----------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
1245
1246.. versionchanged:: 3.4
1247   The utf-16\* and utf-32\* encoders no longer allow surrogate code points
1248   (``U+D800``--``U+DFFF``) to be encoded.
1249   The utf-32\* decoders no longer decode
1250   byte sequences that correspond to surrogate code points.
1251
1252.. versionchanged:: 3.8
1253   ``cp65001`` is now an alias to ``utf_8``.
1254
1255
1256Python Specific Encodings
1257-------------------------
1258
1259A number of predefined codecs are specific to Python, so their codec names have
1260no meaning outside Python. These are listed in the tables below based on the
1261expected input and output types (note that while text encodings are the most
1262common use case for codecs, the underlying codec infrastructure supports
1263arbitrary data transforms rather than just text encodings). For asymmetric
1264codecs, the stated meaning describes the encoding direction.
1265
1266Text Encodings
1267^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1268
1269The following codecs provide :class:`str` to :class:`bytes` encoding and
1270:term:`bytes-like object` to :class:`str` decoding, similar to the Unicode text
1271encodings.
1272
1273.. tabularcolumns:: |l|p{0.3\linewidth}|p{0.3\linewidth}|
1274
1275+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1276| Codec              | Aliases | Meaning                   |
1277+====================+=========+===========================+
1278| idna               |         | Implement :rfc:`3490`,    |
1279|                    |         | see also                  |
1280|                    |         | :mod:`encodings.idna`.    |
1281|                    |         | Only ``errors='strict'``  |
1282|                    |         | is supported.             |
1283+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1284| mbcs               | ansi,   | Windows only: Encode the  |
1285|                    | dbcs    | operand according to the  |
1286|                    |         | ANSI codepage (CP_ACP).   |
1287+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1288| oem                |         | Windows only: Encode the  |
1289|                    |         | operand according to the  |
1290|                    |         | OEM codepage (CP_OEMCP).  |
1291|                    |         |                           |
1292|                    |         | .. versionadded:: 3.6     |
1293+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1294| palmos             |         | Encoding of PalmOS 3.5.   |
1295+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1296| punycode           |         | Implement :rfc:`3492`.    |
1297|                    |         | Stateful codecs are not   |
1298|                    |         | supported.                |
1299+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1300| raw_unicode_escape |         | Latin-1 encoding with     |
1301|                    |         | ``\uXXXX`` and            |
1302|                    |         | ``\UXXXXXXXX`` for other  |
1303|                    |         | code points. Existing     |
1304|                    |         | backslashes are not       |
1305|                    |         | escaped in any way.       |
1306|                    |         | It is used in the Python  |
1307|                    |         | pickle protocol.          |
1308+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1309| undefined          |         | Raise an exception for    |
1310|                    |         | all conversions, even     |
1311|                    |         | empty strings. The error  |
1312|                    |         | handler is ignored.       |
1313+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1314| unicode_escape     |         | Encoding suitable as the  |
1315|                    |         | contents of a Unicode     |
1316|                    |         | literal in ASCII-encoded  |
1317|                    |         | Python source code,       |
1318|                    |         | except that quotes are    |
1319|                    |         | not escaped. Decode       |
1320|                    |         | from Latin-1 source code. |
1321|                    |         | Beware that Python source |
1322|                    |         | code actually uses UTF-8  |
1323|                    |         | by default.               |
1324+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1325
1326.. versionchanged:: 3.8
1327   "unicode_internal" codec is removed.
1328
1329
1330.. _binary-transforms:
1331
1332Binary Transforms
1333^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1334
1335The following codecs provide binary transforms: :term:`bytes-like object`
1336to :class:`bytes` mappings. They are not supported by :meth:`bytes.decode`
1337(which only produces :class:`str` output).
1338
1339
1340.. tabularcolumns:: |l|L|L|L|
1341
1342+----------------------+------------------+------------------------------+------------------------------+
1343| Codec                | Aliases          | Meaning                      | Encoder / decoder            |
1344+======================+==================+==============================+==============================+
1345| base64_codec [#b64]_ | base64, base_64  | Convert the operand to       | :meth:`base64.encodebytes` / |
1346|                      |                  | multiline MIME base64 (the   | :meth:`base64.decodebytes`   |
1347|                      |                  | result always includes a     |                              |
1348|                      |                  | trailing ``'\n'``).          |                              |
1349|                      |                  |                              |                              |
1350|                      |                  | .. versionchanged:: 3.4      |                              |
1351|                      |                  |    accepts any               |                              |
1352|                      |                  |    :term:`bytes-like object` |                              |
1353|                      |                  |    as input for encoding and |                              |
1354|                      |                  |    decoding                  |                              |
1355+----------------------+------------------+------------------------------+------------------------------+
1356| bz2_codec            | bz2              | Compress the operand using   | :meth:`bz2.compress` /       |
1357|                      |                  | bz2.                         | :meth:`bz2.decompress`       |
1358+----------------------+------------------+------------------------------+------------------------------+
1359| hex_codec            | hex              | Convert the operand to       | :meth:`binascii.b2a_hex` /   |
1360|                      |                  | hexadecimal                  | :meth:`binascii.a2b_hex`     |
1361|                      |                  | representation, with two     |                              |
1362|                      |                  | digits per byte.             |                              |
1363+----------------------+------------------+------------------------------+------------------------------+
1364| quopri_codec         | quopri,          | Convert the operand to MIME  | :meth:`quopri.encode` with   |
1365|                      | quotedprintable, | quoted printable.            | ``quotetabs=True`` /         |
1366|                      | quoted_printable |                              | :meth:`quopri.decode`        |
1367+----------------------+------------------+------------------------------+------------------------------+
1368| uu_codec             | uu               | Convert the operand using    | :meth:`uu.encode` /          |
1369|                      |                  | uuencode.                    | :meth:`uu.decode`            |
1370+----------------------+------------------+------------------------------+------------------------------+
1371| zlib_codec           | zip, zlib        | Compress the operand using   | :meth:`zlib.compress` /      |
1372|                      |                  | gzip.                        | :meth:`zlib.decompress`      |
1373+----------------------+------------------+------------------------------+------------------------------+
1374
1375.. [#b64] In addition to :term:`bytes-like objects <bytes-like object>`,
1376   ``'base64_codec'`` also accepts ASCII-only instances of :class:`str` for
1377   decoding
1378
1379.. versionadded:: 3.2
1380   Restoration of the binary transforms.
1381
1382.. versionchanged:: 3.4
1383   Restoration of the aliases for the binary transforms.
1384
1385
1386.. _text-transforms:
1387
1388Text Transforms
1389^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1390
1391The following codec provides a text transform: a :class:`str` to :class:`str`
1392mapping. It is not supported by :meth:`str.encode` (which only produces
1393:class:`bytes` output).
1394
1395.. tabularcolumns:: |l|l|L|
1396
1397+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1398| Codec              | Aliases | Meaning                   |
1399+====================+=========+===========================+
1400| rot_13             | rot13   | Return the Caesar-cypher  |
1401|                    |         | encryption of the         |
1402|                    |         | operand.                  |
1403+--------------------+---------+---------------------------+
1404
1405.. versionadded:: 3.2
1406   Restoration of the ``rot_13`` text transform.
1407
1408.. versionchanged:: 3.4
1409   Restoration of the ``rot13`` alias.
1410
1411
1412:mod:`encodings.idna` --- Internationalized Domain Names in Applications
1413------------------------------------------------------------------------
1414
1415.. module:: encodings.idna
1416   :synopsis: Internationalized Domain Names implementation
1417.. moduleauthor:: Martin v. Löwis
1418
1419This module implements :rfc:`3490` (Internationalized Domain Names in
1420Applications) and :rfc:`3492` (Nameprep: A Stringprep Profile for
1421Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)). It builds upon the ``punycode`` encoding
1422and :mod:`stringprep`.
1423
1424If you need the IDNA 2008 standard from :rfc:`5891` and :rfc:`5895`, use the
1425third-party `idna module <https://pypi.org/project/idna/>_`.
1426
1427These RFCs together define a protocol to support non-ASCII characters in domain
1428names. A domain name containing non-ASCII characters (such as
1429``www.Alliancefrançaise.nu``) is converted into an ASCII-compatible encoding
1430(ACE, such as ``www.xn--alliancefranaise-npb.nu``). The ACE form of the domain
1431name is then used in all places where arbitrary characters are not allowed by
1432the protocol, such as DNS queries, HTTP :mailheader:`Host` fields, and so
1433on. This conversion is carried out in the application; if possible invisible to
1434the user: The application should transparently convert Unicode domain labels to
1435IDNA on the wire, and convert back ACE labels to Unicode before presenting them
1436to the user.
1437
1438Python supports this conversion in several ways:  the ``idna`` codec performs
1439conversion between Unicode and ACE, separating an input string into labels
1440based on the separator characters defined in :rfc:`section 3.1 of RFC 3490 <3490#section-3.1>`
1441and converting each label to ACE as required, and conversely separating an input
1442byte string into labels based on the ``.`` separator and converting any ACE
1443labels found into unicode. Furthermore, the :mod:`socket` module
1444transparently converts Unicode host names to ACE, so that applications need not
1445be concerned about converting host names themselves when they pass them to the
1446socket module. On top of that, modules that have host names as function
1447parameters, such as :mod:`http.client` and :mod:`ftplib`, accept Unicode host
1448names (:mod:`http.client` then also transparently sends an IDNA hostname in the
1449:mailheader:`Host` field if it sends that field at all).
1450
1451When receiving host names from the wire (such as in reverse name lookup), no
1452automatic conversion to Unicode is performed: applications wishing to present
1453such host names to the user should decode them to Unicode.
1454
1455The module :mod:`encodings.idna` also implements the nameprep procedure, which
1456performs certain normalizations on host names, to achieve case-insensitivity of
1457international domain names, and to unify similar characters. The nameprep
1458functions can be used directly if desired.
1459
1460
1461.. function:: nameprep(label)
1462
1463   Return the nameprepped version of *label*. The implementation currently assumes
1464   query strings, so ``AllowUnassigned`` is true.
1465
1466
1467.. function:: ToASCII(label)
1468
1469   Convert a label to ASCII, as specified in :rfc:`3490`. ``UseSTD3ASCIIRules`` is
1470   assumed to be false.
1471
1472
1473.. function:: ToUnicode(label)
1474
1475   Convert a label to Unicode, as specified in :rfc:`3490`.
1476
1477
1478:mod:`encodings.mbcs` --- Windows ANSI codepage
1479-----------------------------------------------
1480
1481.. module:: encodings.mbcs
1482   :synopsis: Windows ANSI codepage
1483
1484This module implements the ANSI codepage (CP_ACP).
1485
1486.. availability:: Windows only.
1487
1488.. versionchanged:: 3.3
1489   Support any error handler.
1490
1491.. versionchanged:: 3.2
1492   Before 3.2, the *errors* argument was ignored; ``'replace'`` was always used
1493   to encode, and ``'ignore'`` to decode.
1494
1495
1496:mod:`encodings.utf_8_sig` --- UTF-8 codec with BOM signature
1497-------------------------------------------------------------
1498
1499.. module:: encodings.utf_8_sig
1500   :synopsis: UTF-8 codec with BOM signature
1501.. moduleauthor:: Walter Dörwald
1502
1503This module implements a variant of the UTF-8 codec. On encoding, a UTF-8 encoded
1504BOM will be prepended to the UTF-8 encoded bytes. For the stateful encoder this
1505is only done once (on the first write to the byte stream). On decoding, an
1506optional UTF-8 encoded BOM at the start of the data will be skipped.
1507