python - Changing the preferred encoding for Windows7 command prompt

Question

Using Python3.3

Running a python script to do some CAD file conversion, but getting below error

Conversion Failed
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "Start.py", line 141, in convertLib
lib.writeLibrary(modFile,symFile)
File "C:Python33Eagle2Kicad/LibraryLibrary.py", line 67, in writeLibrary
self.writeSymFile(symFile)
File "C:Python33Eagle2Kicad/LibraryLibrary.py", line 88, in writeSymFile
devicepart.write(symFile)
File "C:Python33Eagle2Kicad/CommonSymbol.py", line 51, in write
symbol.write(symFile)
File "C:Python33Eagle2Kicad/CommonSymbol.py", line 114, in write
symFile.write(pin.symRep())
File "C:Python33Libencodingscp1252.py", line 19, in encode
return codecs.charmap_encode(input,self.errors,encoding_table)[0]
UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character 'x96' in position 4:     character maps to <undefined>

It seems the preferred encoding in my Windows7 command prompt is NOT cp1252 (typing chcp shows "Active code page 437"). How can I change it to cp1252?

Can anyone please suggest?

EDIT:

As the default preferred encoding of the python command line is cp1252, I tried running the script from python command line instead of the windows command prompt. But I am still getting the same error as above. Can anyone please suggest?

Answer 1

When writing to files, the console encoding is not taken into account; only the locale is. From the open() function documenation:

In text mode, if encoding is not specified the encoding used is platform dependent: locale.getpreferredencoding(False) is called to get the current locale encoding.

On your system, evidently that call returns 'cp1252'. The remedy is to always name the encoding for files explicitly; pass in an encoding argument to set the desired encoding for files:

with open(filename, 'w', encoding='utf8') as symFile: