How to get unicode from python to $INFO label

bossanova808 · 2012-02-23 07:17

I have some code that uses this string:

Code:

u'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s'

(python repr())

...which would appear a to be a utf-8 encoded unicode string (Although I ma very weak in this area!)

and I am setting that to a window property via:

Code:

xbmcgui.Window(xbmcgui.getCurrentWindowId()).setProperty("CURRENTARTIST", artist)

(in a WindowXML)

I suspect I am going wrong somewhere basic but an arvo of researching various encoding things has got me no closer...

anyone have ideas??

...however, this results in gobbledygook on screen.

VictorV · 2012-02-23 21:30

Try to convert it to a bytestring

s = u'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s'.encode('utf-8')

bossanova808 · 2012-02-25 02:19

Unfortunately that doesn't work...same result.

Any other ideas - I think the info IS unicode utf-8, but I think maybe XBMC isn't interpreting it as such

bossanova808 · 2012-02-25 02:24

Hmmm ok passing it just artist = 'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s' WITHOUT making it a uncide string works!

That's odd...must be a double translation thing I guess?

Now, how to get the unciode strings into basic string in python - i.e. cast them I guess. I find this area a bit confusing....

bossanova808 · 2012-02-25 02:36

The problem is I am using a downstream library and is returning strings with these characters in them, so 'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s' - and these are type as unicode.

If I then pass them as this type, they come out in xbmc wonky. I need to just cast them or get the literal value of the string...but I can't seem to just get the literal value from a unicode string in a variable...

I think I am missing something obvious but have been missing it for two days now and it's driving me nuts!

Any python experts know how to do this??

giftie · 2012-02-25 04:48

bossanova808 Wrote:The problem is I am using a downstream library and is returning strings with these characters in them, so 'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s' - and these are type as unicode.

If I then pass them as this type, they come out in xbmc wonky. I need to just cast them or get the literal value of the string...but I can't seem to just get the literal value from a unicode string in a variable...

I think I am missing something obvious but have been missing it for two days now and it's driving me nuts!

Any python experts know how to do this??

I thought it looked like a unicoded utf-8 string...

I use the following python code to insure that the string is in utf-8 coding.

Code:

def get_unicode( to_decode ):

    final = []

    try:

        temp_string = to_decode.encode('utf8')

        return to_decode

    except:

        while True:

            try:

                final.append(to_decode.decode('utf8'))

                break

            except UnicodeDecodeError, exc:

                # everything up to crazy character should be good

                final.append(to_decode[:exc.start].decode('utf8'))

                # crazy character is probably latin1

                final.append(to_decode[exc.start].decode('latin1'))

                # remove already encoded stuff

                to_decode = to_decode[exc.start+1:]

        return "".join(final)

Then I send to XBMC the string with a '.decode("utf-8")' This shows the artist in the proper format(usually..)

bossanova808 · 2012-02-25 05:09

mmm, that seemed to give me the same results. This might make it clearer (perhaps)!

Code:

title, artist, album = self.player.getCurrentTrack()

    print "artist (raises exception about ordinal out of range if printed as is) "

    print repr(artist)

    artist2 = 'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s'

    print "artist2 is " + artist2

    print type(artist2)

    #newa =self.get_unicode(artist)

    xbmcgui.Window(xbmcgui.getCurrentWindowId()).setProperty("CURRENTTITLE", title)

    xbmcgui.Window(xbmcgui.getCurrentWindowId()).setProperty("CURRENTARTIST", artist)

and output:

Code:

06:58 T:756  NOTICE: artist (raises exception about ordinal out of range if printed as is)

06:58 T:756  NOTICE: u'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s'

06:58 T:756  NOTICE: artist2 is Sigur Rós

06:58 T:756  NOTICE: <type 'str'>

If I pass artist 2 - correct onscreen display

pass artist 1 - gobbldeygook

giftie · 2012-02-25 06:12

What's the code in self.player.getCurrentTrack() I think the problem is there. With out the u' prefix it properly works, as you say, but nothing seems to be able to strip out.

bossanova808 Wrote:mmm, that seemed to give me the same results. This might make it clearer (perhaps)!

Code:

title, artist, album = self.player.getCurrentTrack() print "artist (raises exception about ordinal out of range if printed as is) " print repr(artist) artist2 = 'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s' print "artist2 is " + artist2 print type(artist2) #newa =self.get_unicode(artist) xbmcgui.Window(xbmcgui.getCurrentWindowId()).setProperty("CURRENTTITLE", title) xbmcgui.Window(xbmcgui.getCurrentWindowId()).setProperty("CURRENTARTIST", artist)

and output:

Code:

14:06:58 T:756 NOTICE: artist (raises exception about ordinal out of range if printed as is) 14:06:58 T:756 NOTICE: u'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s' 14:06:58 T:756 NOTICE: artist2 is Sigur Rós 14:06:58 T:756 NOTICE: <type 'str'>

If I pass artist 2 - correct onscreen display

pass artist 1 - gobbldeygook

bossanova808 · 2012-02-25 06:18

Code:

artist = self.playlist[currentIndex]['artist']

...which is looking at the result of getplaylist:

    self.playlist = self.sb.playlist_get_info()

...

    def playlist_get_info(self):

        """Get info about the tracks in the current playlist"""

        amount = self.playlist_track_count()

        response = self.request('status 0 %i' % amount, True)

        encoded_list = response.split('playlist%20index')[1:]

        playlist = []

        for encoded in encoded_list:

            data = [self.__unquote(x) for x in ('position' + encoded).split(' ')]

            item = {}

            for info in data:

                info = info.split(':')

                key = info.pop(0)

                if key:

                    item[key] = ':'.join(info)

            item['position'] = int(item['position'])

            item['id'] = int(item['id'])

            item['duration'] = float(item['duration'])

            playlist.append(item)

        return playlist

and __unquote is:

    def __unquote(self, text):

        try:

            import urllib.parse

            return urllib.parse.unquote (text, encoding=self.charset)

        except ImportError:

            import urllib

            return urllib.unquote(text)

(it does raise the exception and fo through ro just urllib.unquote(text) rather than the .parse version).

I wrote basically none of those functions, they are from pysqueezecenter and I use this in lots of places, so ideally I want to fix it externally if I can...as if I change the output it will likely break other things.

I even tried using repr() on it and then stripping off the u' and the final ' in a gross hack but that didn't work...which surprised me.

giftie · 2012-02-25 07:33

I know you really don't want to change the coding, but can you change the response line to the following:

Code:

response = self.request('status 0 %i' % amount, False)

bossanova808 Wrote:

Code:

artist = self.playlist[currentIndex]['artist'] ...which is looking at the result of getplaylist: self.playlist = self.sb.playlist_get_info() ... def playlist_get_info(self): """Get info about the tracks in the current playlist""" amount = self.playlist_track_count() response = self.request('status 0 %i' % amount, True) encoded_list = response.split('playlist%20index')[1:] playlist = [] for encoded in encoded_list: data = [self.__unquote(x) for x in ('position' + encoded).split(' ')] item = {} for info in data: info = info.split(':') key = info.pop(0) if key: item[key] = ':'.join(info) item['position'] = int(item['position']) item['id'] = int(item['id']) item['duration'] = float(item['duration']) playlist.append(item) return playlist and __unquote is: def __unquote(self, text): try: import urllib.parse return urllib.parse.unquote (text, encoding=self.charset) except ImportError: import urllib return urllib.unquote(text) (it does raise the exception and fo through ro just urllib.unquote(text) rather than the .parse version).

I wrote basically none of those functions, they are from pysqueezecenter and I use this in lots of places, so ideally I want to fix it externally if I can...as if I change the output it will likely break other things.

I even tried using repr() on it and then stripping off the u' and the final ' in a gross hack but that didn't work...which surprised me.

VictorV Senior Member Posts: 123 Joined: May 2009 Reputation: 0 Location: Norway	2012-02-23 21:30 Post: #2 Try to convert it to a bytestring s = u'Sigur R\xc3\xb3s'.encode('utf-8') NRK Web-TV (This post was last modified: 2012-02-23 21:49 by VictorV.)
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