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Os.chdir with non-Latin characters

While learning the os module in Python and I've come across a problem.
Let's pretend my current working directory is: C:\Users\Москва\Desktop\Coding\Project 1.
I'd like to change the cwd to Desktop but since the path contains some Russian letters (Москва) it throws a Syntax error:
print(os.getcwd()) # C:\Users\Москва\Desktop\Coding\Project 1
os.chdir('C:\Users\Москва\Desktop')
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes...
How shall I usually treat non-standard characters in paths and change the directory in my case?

It isn't about the russian, it's about the backslash with u: \U.
When you print os.getcwd, escaped backslashes goes away:
os.getcwd()
# 'C:\\Users\\chris\\Documents\\Москва\\test'
print(os.getcwd())
C:\Users\chris\Documents\Москва\test
And now if you try to use the printed one by copy-paste, python will understand \Users part as a unicode but of course fail. You can simply reproduce by executing
"\Uaaaa"
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 0-1: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape
You can either use raw string, or use escaped backslashes:
os.chdir(r'C:\Users\sjysk\Documents\Москва')
# ^ note `r` here
os.getcwd()
# 'C:\\Users\\chris\\Documents\\Москва'
os.chdir('C:\\Users\\sjysk\\Documents\\Москва')
os.getcwd()
# 'C:\\Users\\chris\\Documents\\Москва'

Trouble with opening docx file, seems to be Unicode issue

I am a novice to python & this is my first small project
I am having trouble inputting a file directory to open a Word document. I tried this by copying & pasting the directory from my command prompt, but this Error appears after plugging it in. How do I convert the command prompt to UTF-8 or find the directory in Unicode?
#After importing necessary modules for the project, I access the file
from docx import Document
import pandas as pd
import docx
doc = Document('C:\Users\trisy\OneDrive\Desktop\classes\SP_22_courses\CS1110\pye_files\kw_txt.docx')
#Error message
doc = Document('C:\Users\xxx\OneDrive\Desktop\classes\SP_22_courses\xxx\pye_files\kw_txt.docx')
^
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape

The problem is caused by the backslashes in that pathname, combined with certain other characters.
In Python, putting \x in a string can have special behavior depending on what x is.
For example, \n does not mean "backslash n"; it means a newline character.
\U is one of these special cases.
To get around this, you have two options:
Use "raw strings". Put an r before the string. r'C:\Users\...' The r tells Python that backslashes should have no special meaning.
Use forward slashes in the file path. 'C:/Users/...' These will work even on Windows.

How I can convert file with any format to text format using Python 3.6?

I am trying to have a converter that can convert any file of any format to text, so that processing becomes easier to me. I have used the Python textract library.
Here is the documentation: https://textract.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
I have install it using the pip and have tried to use it. But got error and could not understand how to resolve it.
>>> import textract
>>> text = textract.process('C:\Users\beta\Desktop\Projects Done With Specification.pdf', method='pdfminer')
File "<stdin>", line 1
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape
Even I have tried using the command without specifying method.
>>> import textract
>>> text = textract.process('C:\Users\beta\Desktop\Projects Done With Specification.pdf')
File "<stdin>", line 1
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape
Kindly let me know how I can get rid of this issue with your suggestion. If it is possible then please suggest me the solution, if there is anything else that can be handy instead of textract, then still you can suggest me. I would like to hear.

The \ character means different things in different contexts. In Windows pathnames, it is the directory separator. In Python strings, it introduces escape sequences. When specifying paths, you have to account for this.
Try any one of these:
text = textract.process('C:\\Users\\beta\\Desktop\\Projects Done With Specification.pdf', method='pdfminer')
text = textract.process(r'C:\Users\beta\Desktop\Projects Done With Specification.pdf', method='pdfminer')
text = textract.process('C:/Users/beta/Desktop/Projects Done With Specification.pdf', method='pdfminer')

The problem is with the string
'C:\Users\beta\Desktop\Projects Done With Specification.pdf'
The \U starts an eight-character Unicode escape, such as '\U00014321`. In your code, the escape is followed by the character 's', which is invalid.
You either need to duplicate all backslashes, or prefix the string with r (to produce a raw string).

Try encoding='utf-8'
textract.process('C:\Users\beta\Desktop\Projects Done With Specification.pdf', encoding='utf-8')

In your case, error is due to invalid path.
Try this and it works:
'C:\Users\beta\Desktop\Projects Done With Specification.pdf'
"OR"
'C:/Users/beta/Desktop/Projects Done With Specification.pdf'

import textract
text = textract.process(r'C:\Users\myname\Desktop\doc\an.docx', encoding='utf-8')
this worked for me. Try.

textract doesn't work for me, when I was trying to convert slurm file output to text file. But simple with open did.
with open('disktest.o1761955', 'r') as f:
txt = f.read()

How do I load fiducial node data from Slicer in Python? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How should I write a Windows path in a Python string literal?
(5 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
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I am using Python 3.1 on a Windows 7 machine. Russian is the default system language, and utf-8 is the default encoding.
Looking at the answer to a previous question, I have attempting using the "codecs" module to give me a little luck. Here's a few examples:
>>> g = codecs.open("C:\Users\Eric\Desktop\beeline.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-4: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape (<pyshell#39>, line 1)
>>> g = codecs.open("C:\Users\Eric\Desktop\Site.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-4: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape (<pyshell#40>, line 1)
>>> g = codecs.open("C:\Python31\Notes.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 11-12: malformed \N character escape (<pyshell#41>, line 1)
>>> g = codecs.open("C:\Users\Eric\Desktop\Site.txt", "r", encoding="utf-8")
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-4: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape (<pyshell#44>, line 1)
My last idea was, I thought it might have been the fact that Windows "translates" a few folders, such as the "users" folder, into Russian (though typing "users" is still the correct path), so I tried it in the Python31 folder. Still, no luck. Any ideas?

The problem is with the string
"C:\Users\Eric\Desktop\beeline.txt"
Here, \U in "C:\Users... starts an eight-character Unicode escape, such as \U00014321. In your code, the escape is followed by the character 's', which is invalid.
You either need to duplicate all backslashes:
"C:\\Users\\Eric\\Desktop\\beeline.txt"
Or prefix the string with r (to produce a raw string):
r"C:\Users\Eric\Desktop\beeline.txt"

Typical error on Windows because the default user directory is C:\user\<your_user>, so when you want to pass this path as a string argument into a Python function, you get a Unicode error, just because the \u is a Unicode escape. If the next 8 characters after the \u are not numeric this produces an error.
To solve it, just double the backslashes: C:\\user\\<\your_user>...
This will ensure that Python treats the single backslashes as single backslashes.

Prefixing with 'r' works very well, but it needs to be in the correct syntax. For example:
passwordFile = open(r'''C:\Users\Bob\SecretPasswordFile.txt''')
No need for \\ here - maintains readability and works well.

With Python 3 I had this problem:
self.path = 'T:\PythonScripts\Projects\Utilities'
produced this error:
self.path = 'T:\PythonScripts\Projects\Utilities'
^
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in
position 25-26: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape
the fix that worked is:
self.path = r'T:\PythonScripts\Projects\Utilities'
It seems the '\U' was producing an error and the 'r' preceding the string turns off the eight-character Unicode escape (for a raw string) which was failing. (This is a bit of an over-simplification, but it works if you don't care about unicode)
Hope this helps someone

Or you could replace '\' with '/' in the path.

path = pd.read_csv(**'C:\Users\mravi\Desktop\filename'**)
The error is because of the path that is mentioned
Add 'r' before the path
path = pd.read_csv(**r'C:\Users\mravi\Desktop\filename'**)
This would work fine.

I had this same error in python 3.2.
I have script for email sending and:
csv.reader(open('work_dir\uslugi1.csv', newline='', encoding='utf-8'))
when I remove first char in file uslugi1.csv works fine.

Refer to openpyxl document, you can do changes as followings.
from openpyxl import Workbook
from openpyxl.drawing.image import Image
wb = Workbook()
ws = wb.active
ws['A1'] = 'Insert a xxx.PNG'
# Reload an image
img = Image(**r**'x:\xxx\xxx\xxx.png')
# Insert to worksheet and anchor next to cells
ws.add_image(img, 'A2')
wb.save(**r**'x:\xxx\xxx.xlsx')

I had same error, just uninstalled and installed again the numpy package, that worked!

I had this error.
I have a main python script which calls in functions from another, 2nd, python script.
At the end of the first script I had a comment block designated with ''' '''.
I was getting this error because of this commenting code block.
I repeated the error multiple times once I found it to ensure this was the error, & it was.
I am still unsure why.

Python - Must add r when opening a file

I have several .py files and I can open my file everywhere, except in my test.py file (I test scripts and functions there) instead of this:
file = open("C:\Users\User\Desktop\key_values.txt", "r")
I need to use this (with r) to avoid error:
file = open(r"C:\Users\User\Desktop\key_values.txt", "r")
I get this error: (when I try to open a file without r in my test.py script)
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape
Any idea why is this happening ?

Backslash is an escape character, so you can include characters like "\n" (new line) and "\t" (tab). The r before the string means means "my backslashes are not escape characters".
Interestingly, it looks like your string "C:\Users\User\Desktop\key_values.txt" works ok in python 2 because none of the backslashes are part of anything looking like a known escape sequence. But in python 3, "\Uxxxx" indicates a unicode character. So maybe that is why some of your python files can cope and some can't.

The other answers are OK.. but this a time saving trick:
Try using slashes instead of backslashes:
file = open("C:/Users/User/Desktop/key_values.txt", "r")
It works in Windows. Tried with Python 2.7
Hope this helps