Python Unicode Equal Comparison Failed In Terminal But Working Under Spyder Editor

I need to compare a unicode string coming from a utf-8 file with a constant defined in the Python script. I'm using Python 2.7.6 on Linux. If I run the above script within Spyder (

Solution 1:

You are comparing a byte string (type str) with a unicode value. Spyder has changed the default encoding from ASCII to UTF-8, and Python does an implicit conversion between byte strings and unicode values when comparing the two types. Your byte strings are encoded to UTF-8, so under Spyder that comparison succeeds.

The solution is to not use byte strings, use unicode literals for your two test values instead:

test1 = u"Tarn"
test2 = u"Rhône-Alpes"

Changing the system default encoding is, in my opinion, a terrible idea. Your code should use Unicode correctly instead of relying on implicit conversions, but to change the rules of implicit conversions only increases the confusion, not make the task any easier.

Solution 2:

Just using depname = rec['DEP'] should work as you have already declared the encoding.

If you print some_french_deps[2] it will print Rhône-Alpes so your comparison will work.

Solution 3:

As you are comparing a string object with a unicode object, python throws this warning.

To fix this, you can write

test1 = "Tarn"test2 = "Rhône-Alpes"

as

test1 = u"Tarn"
test2 = u"Rhône-Alpes"

where the 'u' indicates it is a unicode object.