Problems read files in python:UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xd5 in position 168: invalid continuation byte

Question

I try to open the text file and it does not work

with open('quiz.txt') as f:
    lines = f.readlines()

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#35>", line 2, in <module>
    lines=f.readlines()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/codecs.py", line 322, in decode
    (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xd5 in position 168: invalid continuation byte

Does this answer your question? How do I open a text file in Python? — deikyb
– deikyb, Commented Apr 20, 2020 at 19:12

Eric Jin · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-20 19:12:05Z

1

Invalid continuation byte = not unicode = probably a binary file.

with open('quiz.txt', 'rb') as f:
    lines = f.readlines()

will open the file in bytes mode.

Another possibility is that you are executing this in your shell, and the program looks for stuff only in the working directory.

import os
os.chdir('/path/to/your/file/excluding/file/name')
with open('quiz.txt', 'rb') as f:
    lines = f.readlines()

answered Apr 20, 2020 at 19:12

Eric Jin

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