How to compare these two strings in Python?

Question

I have a file with the following two strings:

25_%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%88%D3%99%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0
25_\xD1\x80\xD0\xB0\xD1\x88\xD3\x99\xD0\xB0\xD1\x80\xD0\xB0

They both represent the same URL path, and therefore should be equal. I would like to apply the same "cleaning function" to both of them, obtaining the same string.

After reading these strings from the file I have:

>> s0
'25_%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%88%D3%99%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0'
>> s1
'2_\\xD1\\x80\\xD0\\xB0\\xD1\\x88\\xD3\\x99\\xD0\\xB0\\xD1\\x80\\xD0\\xB0'

(note the escaped backslashes in s1). If I unquote s0 I get the following:

>> import urllib
>> t0 = urllib.unquote(s0)
'25_\xd1\x80\xd0\xb0\xd1\x88\xd3\x99\xd0\xb0\xd1\x80\xd0\xb0'
>> print t0
25_рашәара

which is good. However, the only thing I know to do on s1 is the following:

>> t1 = s1.decode("unicode_escape")
u'2_\xd1\x80\xd0\xb0\xd1\x88\xd3\x99\xd0\xb0\xd1\x80\xd0\xb0'
>> print t1
2_ÑÐ°ÑÓÐ°Ñ

which looks broken. My question is: what clean(s) function could be written to normalize these two strings, so they either are both <type 'str'> or both <type 'unicode'> and the both print equally (and compare equally as well)?

georg · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-29 15:12:26Z

2

Consider:

>>> s0 = '25_%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%88%D3%99%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0'
>>> s1 = '25_\\xD1\\x80\\xD0\\xB0\\xD1\\x88\\xD3\\x99\\xD0\\xB0\\xD1\\x80\\xD0\\xB0'
>>> import urllib
>>> t0 = urllib.unquote(s0).decode('utf8')
>>> t1 = s1.decode('string_escape').decode('utf8')
>>> print t0
25_рашәара
>>> print t1
25_рашәара
>>> t0 == t1
True
>>>

edited Jul 29, 2015 at 15:12

answered Jul 29, 2015 at 15:01

georg

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2 Comments

gdiazc Over a year ago

This works! I actually tried s1.decode('unicode_escape'), which didn't work. Would you give me a quick pointer as to the difference between string_escape and unicode_escape?

georg Over a year ago

@Gonzalo: string_escape is for strings, unicode_escape for unicodes ;)

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