[2.5.1] "UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte"?

[Steve Holden]

Ulrich Eckhardt wrote:
> Gilles Ganault wrote:
>> I'm getting this error while downloading and parsing web pages:
>>
>> =====
>>     title = m.group(1)
>> UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe9 in position
>> 48: ordinal  not in range(128)
>> =====
>>
>> From what I understand, it's because some strings are Unicode, and
>> hence contain characters that are illegal in ASCII.
> 
> You just need to use a codec according to the encoding of the webpage. Take
> a look at 
>   http://wiki.python.org/moin/Python3UnicodeDecodeError
> It is about Python 3, but the principles apply nonetheless. In any case,
> throwing the error at a websearch will turn up lots of solutions.
> 
I won't believe that statement is producing the error until I see a
traceback. As far as I'm aware the re module can handle Unicode. Getting
a UnicodeDecodeError in an assignment would be unusual to say the least.
Though it's not, I suppose, impossible that calling the .group() method
of a match object might, it seems unlikely.

regards
 Steve
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