Is there a way to change Python's open() default text encoding?
character-encoding, default, locale, python, utf-8
Solution
Don't change the locale or preferred encoding because;
- it may affect other parts of your code (or the libraries you're using); and
- it wont be clear that your code depends on `open` using a specific encoding.
Instead, use a simple wrapper:
from functools import partial
open_utf8 = partial(open, encoding='UTF-8')
You can also specify defaults for all keyword arguments (should you need to).
Problem
Can I change default `open()` (`io.open()` in 2.7) text encoding in a cross-platform way? So that I didn't need to specify each time `open(...,encoding='utf-8')`. 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. Though documentation doesn't specify how to set preferred encoding. The function is in `locale` module, so I need to change locale? Is there any reliable cross-platform way to set UTF-8 locale? Will it affect anything else other than the default text file encoding? Or locale changes are dangerous (can break something), and I should stick to custom wrapper such as: ``` def uopen(*args, **kwargs): return open(*args, encoding='UTF-8', **kwargs) ```