Correct way to define Python source code encoding

Check the docs here:

"If a comment in the first or second line of the Python script matches the regular expression coding[=:]\s*([-\w.]+), this comment is processed as an encoding declaration"

"The recommended forms of this expression are

# -*- coding: <encoding-name> -*-

which is recognized also by GNU Emacs, and

# vim:fileencoding=<encoding-name>

which is recognized by Bram Moolenaar’s VIM."

So, you can put pretty much anything before the "coding" part, but stick to "coding" (with no prefix) if you want to be 100% python-docs-recommendation-compatible.

More specifically, you need to use whatever is recognized by Python and the specific editing software you use (if it needs/accepts anything at all). E.g. the coding form is recognized (out of the box) by GNU Emacs but not Vim (yes, without a universal agreement, it's essentially a turf war).

Just copy paste below statement on the top of your program.It will solve character encoding problems

#!/usr/bin/env python# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

PEP 263:

the first or second line must match the regular expression "coding[:=]\s*([-\w.]+)"

So, "encoding: UTF-8" matches.

PEP provides some examples:

#!/usr/bin/python# vim: set fileencoding=<encoding name> :

# This Python file uses the following encoding: utf-8import os, sys