UnicodeEncodeError exception in python

Error message:
UnicodeEncodeError: codec can't encode character  in position : ordinal not in range(128)

Python represents the string in utf-8 though the string has charachters from different encoding, hence the error message.

Scenario: Have charachters in string which are represented as string(utf-8) but has to be unicode

• Check the type, that should tell what's the encoding:

           type(str_var)

• If the type is 'str': you should be decoding from utf-8 to unicode:

           str_var.decode('utf-8')

• If the type is unicode, then encode it to utf-8

           univar.encode('utf-8')

Note: if the encoding is wrong you might end up with no value if you do to avoid the exception:
          str_val.encode('ascii', 'ignore')

Refer unicode link to understand more about unicode.

Unix/Linux Shell commands

Unix/Linux Shell commands

Shortcuts

!!  (bang bang): Run entire previous command line.

    Previous command:
        $ ls -l /usr/bin/g++ /usr/bin/gcc
          -rwxr-xr-x 4 root root 221736 Oct  7  2010 /usr/bin/g++
          -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 221920 Oct  7  2010 /usr/bin/gcc
     Shortcut:
        $ !!
           ls -l /usr/bin/g++ /usr/bin/gcc
           -rwxr-xr-x 4 root root 221736 Oct  7  2010 /usr/bin/g++
           -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 221920 Oct  7  2010 /usr/bin/gcc

!^  (bang caret): Run just the command/program from previous command line

     Previous command:
         $ echo "contents of file1" > file1 ; echo "contents of file2" > file2

         $ ls file1 file2

            file1  file2

      Shortcut:

         $ cat !^
            cat file1
            contents of file1

!* (bang star): All arguments of previous command line

    Previous command:
         $ echo "contents of file1" > file1 ; echo "contents of file2" > file2

         $ ls file1 file2

            file1  file2
    Shortcut:
         $ head !*
            head file1 file2
            ==> file1 <==
            contents of file1

            ==> file2 <==
            contents of file2

Navigating/edit command line on terminal

Ctrl + A or Home	Moves the cursor to the start of a line.
Ctrl+ E or End	Moves the cursor to the end of a line.
Esc + B	Moves to the beginning of the previous or current word.
Ctrl + K	Deletes from the current cursor position to the end of the line.
Ctrl + U	Deletes from the start of the line to the current cursor position.
Ctrl + W	Deletes the word before the cursor.
Alt + B	Goes back one word at a time.
Alt + F	Moves forward one word at a time.
Alt + C	Capitalizes letter where cursor is and moves to end of word.

Commands

ls : list directory contents

          1. List the files by directories but not recurse with -l (minus l) flag
              ls -ld *

          2. Find timestamp of a file in seconds:
              ls -l --time-style=full-iso

Copy files across sites/machines

scp <machine name>:<source file path>  <machine name>:<Destination path>
Note: Machine name is not necessary if you are already logged into that machine

reset: Reset the terminal

• Clears the garbled terminal with illegible characters 

locale: Displays the current locale settings

More Unix tricks here
http://lifehacker.com/5743814/become-a-command-line-ninja-with-these-time-saving-shortcuts
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal

Settings

setenv LC_ALL C

If there are few illegible characters displayed in place of special charachters in files or man pages set the above to make them visible properly.

Learn locale here, here