Capitalize doesn't work on special characters - Python

Question

I've been trying to capitalize loads of strings, and some of them start with utf-8 characters. Problem is, they don't capitalize!

mystring = 'lucas'
mystring.capitalize() # returns 'Lucas'

mytring = 'æthelred'
mystring.capitalize() # returns 'æthelred'

Same with vowels containing `´^¨ and the characters ð, þ, e.t.c. What do I do to solve this?

I actually don't have access to the string, I get them somewhere else, in a text file...

`mystring.decode("utf-8").capitalize()` – Padraic Cunningham Dec 31 '14 at 17:26 — Padraic Cunningham, Dec 31 '14 at 17:26

Mazdak · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-31T19:17:41.837

5

You omit u . the string needs to be defined as unicode for python !

>>> mytring = u"æthelred"
>>> print mytring.capitalize()
Æthelred

As in python 3 strings are unicode by default you dont need u .

>>> "æthelred".capitalize()
'Æthelred'

edited Dec 31 '14 at 19:17

answered Dec 31 '14 at 16:31

Mazdak

2

this answer is correct for python 2.x. In python 3.x, strings are unicode by default, so Leandro's code should work fine – stochastic Dec 31 '14 at 17:20
1

@stochastic yes , thanks for reminding ! i'll update the answer – Mazdak Dec 31 '14 at 17:24
how do I define a string as unicode when it's already in a variable? Sorry, quite new to this. – Leandro Lyra Dec 31 '14 at 19:12
@LeandroLyra just use `unicode` function : `>>> unicode('abc') u'abc'` – Mazdak Dec 31 '14 at 19:13

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 31 '14 at 17:39

2

If you are using Python 2 this will also work. At the top of your file put:

from __future__ import unicode_literals

This will force Python 3 like behavior for strings, making them unicode by default.

answered Dec 31 '14 at 17:39

Matt Smith

this doesn't seem to work, there are several stuff it can't decode this way. I'm also declaring utf-8 at the beggining of the file, it shouldn't be a problem. – Leandro Lyra Dec 31 '14 at 19:11

2 Answers2