Question

This returns False, because the first one is a Str object and the second one is a Unicode object.

However, since they are both Ramón, what can I do so that it returns True.

I’ve tried to convert the first one to a Unicode object:

>>> varString = 'Ramón'
>>> varUnicode = u'Ramón'
>>> varString == varUnicode
False
>>> newUnicode == unicode(varString, encoding='unicode-escape')
>>> varString; varUnicode; newUnicode
'Ram\xa2n'
u'Ram\xf3n'
u'Ram\xa2n'
>>> varUnicode == newUnicode
False

They have different encodings. What can I do? Thanks!

Answer 1

varString is unlikely to be encoded in unicode-escape. The Python interpreter uses the encoding of sys.stdin.encoding when it decodes what it reads at the >>> prompt into a unicode object. So you can use the same encoding when you decode your str object for yourself:

>>> import sys
>>> sys.stdin.encoding
'UTF-8'
>>> varString = 'Ramón'
>>> varUnicode = u'Ramón'
>>> newUnicode = unicode(varString, encoding='UTF-8') # or encoding=sys.stdin.encoding
>>> varString; varUnicode; newUnicode
'Ram\xc3\xb3n'
u'Ram\xf3n'
u'Ram\xf3n'
>>> varUnicode == newUnicode
True