Reversible replacement of whitespace characters with visible characters

[James Stroud]

Micah wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm looking for a tool to do the following 2 things:
> 
> 1) Given a string (ie. file, std input, whatever), replace all
> whitespace characters with visible characters (like their Unicode value
> or something).  The end result will be one long unbroken line
> 
> 2) Given a string altered as in step 1, "decode" it back to the
> original string.
> 
> Note: The original string (it will usually be source files) might
> already contain Unicode values, and these must remain and not be
> altered in step 2.
> 
> Note 2: I'm working in a Windows XP environment, but I have access to
> cygwin if that makes a difference.
> 
> Can anyone think of a tool that already does this?  I could probably
> whip something up, but if there's already something that does it I'd
> rather just use it.
> 
> Micah
> 

Try urllib.

py> import urllib
py> astr = 'faf\tfasf dsf\ndsfds dsf dsaf \t\r'
py> urllib.quote(astr)
'faf%09fasf%20dsf%0Adsfds%20dsf%20dsaf%20%09%0D'
py> print astr
faf     fasf dsf
dsfds dsf dsaf

James

-- 
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/