Martin v. Loewis
2/10/2008 9:30:00 PM
> I want to make a little Python utility where a user can enter the
> unicode numerical code and get the actual symbol back in utf-8.
>
> For example, a user could enter something like u221E
I'm puzzled why the user would enter "u221E" - why not just "221E"?
> And get back â??
>
> Now, this does seem to work:
>
>>>> print u"\u221E"
> â??
> However how can I change it so it works with a string variable?
The problem is not with variables - print can output variables
just fine:
text = u"\u221E"
print text
(where text is a variable holding a Unicode string)
Your problem is with data conversion: how to convert a string
holding a hexadecimal integer number into a Unicode
character whose ordinal is that number?
To do so, you need two steps (assuming you start from "221E")
0. char = "221E"
1. convert that into an integer: char = int(char, 16)
2. convert that into a Unicode character: char = unichr(char)
3. print it: print char
If you insist on the user entering "u221E" instead, you have
to convert that first into a string without the leading u:
0.5 char = char[1:]
HTH,
Martin