String.maketrans for English and Persian numbers

Question

I have a function like this: ``` persian_numbers = '۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹۰' english_numbers = '1234567890' arabic_numbers = '١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩٠' english_trans = string.maketrans(english_numbers, persian_numbers) arabic_trans = string.maketrans(arabic_numbers, persian_numbers) text.translate(english_trans) text.translate(arabic_trans) ``` I want it to translate all Arabic and English numbers to Persian. But Python says: ``` english_translate = string.maketrans(english_numbers, persian_numbers) ValueError: maketrans arguments must have same length ``` I tried to encode strings with Unicode `utf-8` but I always got some errors! Sometimes the problem is Arabic string instead! Do you know a better solution for this job? EDIT: It seems the problem is Unicode characters length in ASCII. An Arabic number like '۱' is two character -- that I find out with `ord()`. And the length problem starts from here :-(

Accepted Answer

See unidecode library which converts all strings into UTF8. It is very useful in case of number input in different languages.

In Python 2:

```
>>> from unidecode import unidecode
>>> a = unidecode(u"۰۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹")
>>> a
'0123456789'
>>> unidecode(a)
'0123456789'
```

In Python 3:

```
>>> from unidecode import unidecode
>>> a = unidecode("۰۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹")
>>> a
'0123456789'
>>> unidecode(a)
'0123456789'
```

String.maketrans for English and Persian numbers

Solution

Problem