smart quotes

[Adrian Smith]

Can anyone tell me how to get rid of smart quotes in html using
Python? I've tried variations on
stuff = string.replace(stuff, "\“", "\""), but to no avail, presumably
because they're not standard ASCII.

[Peter Otten]

Adrian Smith wrote:

Can anyone tell me how to get rid of smart quotes in html using
Python? I've tried variations on
stuff = string.replace(stuff, "\“", "\""), but to no avail, presumably
because they're not standard ASCII.

Convert the string to unicode. For that you have to know its encoding. I
assume UTF-8:

>>s = "a “smart quote� example"
u = s.decode("utf-8")

Now you can replace the quotes (I looked up the codes in wikipedia):

>>u.replace(u"\u201c", "").replace(u"\u201d", "")

u'a smart quote example'

Alternatively, if you have many characters to remove translate() is more
efficient:

>>u.translate(dict.fromkeys([0x201c, 0x201d, 0x2018, 0x2019]))

u'a smart quote example'

If necessary convert the result back to the original encoding:

>>clean = u.translate(dict.fromkeys([0x201c, 0x201d, 0x2018, 0x2019]))
clean.encode("utf-8")

'a smart quote example'

Peter

[Adrian Smith]

On Aug 26, 4:13*pm, Peter Otten <[e-mail]:

Adrian Smith wrote:

Can anyone tell me how to get rid of smart quotes in html using
Python? I've tried variations on
stuff = string.replace(stuff, "\“", "\""), but to no avail, presumably
because they're not standard ASCII.

Convert the string to unicode. For that you have to know its encoding. I
assume UTF-8:

>s = "a “smart quote” example"
u = s.decode("utf-8")

Now you can replace the quotes (I looked up the codes in wikipedia):

>u.replace(u"\u201c", "").replace(u"\u201d", "")

u'a smart quote example'

Alternatively, if you have many characters to remove translate() is more
efficient:

>u.translate(dict.fromkeys([0x201c, 0x201d, 0x2018, 0x2019]))

u'a smart quote example'

If necessary convert the result back to the original encoding:

>clean = u.translate(dict.fromkeys([0x201c, 0x201d, 0x2018, 0x2019]))
clean.encode("utf-8")

'a smart quote example'

Peter

Brilliant, thanks!