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Asked: 2026-06-08T02:40:17+00:00

I am a complete beginner in Python, and would like to start learning it

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I am a complete beginner in Python, and would like to start learning it by doing. Namely, I’d love to correct some EXIF information in a huge bunch of family photos I have. To start with, I want to just get this information out of JPEG files properly.

Some of them have a title written in EXIF. It can be obtained e.g. by 

import pyexiv2
metadata = pyexiv2.ImageMetadata(filename)
metadata.read()
title = metadata['Exif.Image.XPTitle']

This far I’ve got. Now comes the problem. Some of the titles contain Cyrillic letters. If I do print title.human_value I get for example 

`Милой Мамуле от Майи, 11 ÑÐ½Ð²Ð°Ñ€Ñ 1944.`

while with print title, it is 

<Exif.Image.XPTitle [Byte] = 28 4 56 4 59 4 62 4 57 4 32 0 28 4 48 4 60 4 67 4 59 4 53 4 32 0 62 4 66 4 32 0 28 4 48 4 57 4 56 4 44 0 32 0 49 0 49 0 32 0 79 4 61 4 50 4 48 4 64 4 79 4 32 0 49 0 57 0 52 0 52 0 46 0 0 0>

The actual string I’d love to see is 

Милой Мамуле от Майи, 11 января 1944.

It seems to be a unicode problem, but after trying already a dozen of different methods found here and elsewhere, I just cannot cope with it. Is it possible to see Russian letters in the console at all? I am using python(xy) on Windows 7 (English), so my IDE is spyder2. Just the default installation, to which I added pyexiv2. TIA!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The bytes are UTF-16.

    In Python 3:

    >>> b = [28, 4, 56, 4, 59, 4, 62, 4, 57, 4, 32, 0, 28, 4, 48, 4, 60, 4, 67, 4, 59, 4, 53, 4, 32, 0, 62, 4, 66, 4, 32, 0, 28, 4, 48, 4, 57, 4, 56, 4, 44, 0, 32, 0, 49, 0, 49, 0, 32, 0, 79, 4, 61, 4, 50, 4, 48, 4, 64, 4, 79, 4, 32, 0, 49, 0, 57, 0, 52, 0, 52, 0, 46, 0, 0, 0]
>>> bytes(b).decode("utf-16")
'Милой Мамуле от Майи, 11 января 1944.\x00'

    In Python 2:

    >>> b = [28, 4, 56, 4, 59, 4, 62, 4, 57, 4, 32, 0, 28, 4, 48, 4, 60, 4, 67, 4, 59, 4, 53, 4, 32, 0, 62, 4, 66, 4, 32, 0, 28, 4, 48, 4, 57, 4, 56, 4, 44, 0, 32, 0, 49, 0, 49, 0, 32, 0, 79, 4, 61, 4, 50, 4, 48, 4, 64, 4, 79, 4, 32, 0, 49, 0, 57, 0, 52, 0, 52, 0, 46, 0, 0, 0]
>>> "".join(chr(c) for c in b).decode("utf-16")
u'\u041c\u0438\u043b\u043e\u0439 \u041c\u0430\u043c\u0443\u043b\u0435 \u043e\u04
42 \u041c\u0430\u0439\u0438, 11 \u044f\u043d\u0432\u0430\u0440\u044f 1944.\x00'
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