How to make python 3 print() utf8
Question: How to make python 3 (3.1) to print("Some text") to stdout in utf8 ...  
or how to output raw bytes..

Test.py

>
>     TestText = "Test - āĀēĒčČ..šŠūŪžŽ" # this is UTF-8  
>     TestText2 = b"Test2 -
> \xc4\x81\xc4\x80\xc4\x93\xc4\x92\xc4\x8d\xc4\x8c..\xc5\xa1\xc5\xa0\xc5\xab\xc5\xaa\xc5\xbe\xc5\xbd"
> # just bytes  
>     print(sys.getdefaultencoding())  
>     print(sys.stdout.encoding)  
>     print(TestText)  
>     print(TestText.encode("utf8"))  
>     print(TestText.encode("cp1252","replace"))  
>     print(TestText2)  
>  

Output: \\\ in cp1257 and I replaced chars to byte values [xHEX]

> utf-8  
>  cp1257  
>  Test - [xE2][xC2][xE7][C7][xE8][xC8]..[xF0][xD0][xFB][xDB][xFE][xDE]  
>  b'Test -
> \xc4\x81\xc4\x80\xc4\x93\xc4\x92\xc4\x8d\xc4\x8c..\xc5\xa1\xc5\xa0\xc5\xab\xc5\xaa\xc5\xbe\xc5\xbd'  
>  b'Test - ??????..\x9a\x8a??\x9e\x8e'  
>  b'Test2 -
> \xc4\x81\xc4\x80\xc4\x93\xc4\x92\xc4\x8d\xc4\x8c..\xc5\xa1\xc5\xa0\xc5\xab\xc5\xaa\xc5\xbe\xc5\xbd'

print() is just too smart... :D  
there's no point using encoded text with print (it always show only
representation of bytes not real bytes)  
and it's impossible to output bytes at all, because print anyway and always
encodes it in sys.stdout.encoding

for example:

>
>     print(chr(255))  
>  

throws an error

> Traceback (most recent call last):  
>  File "Test.py", line 1, in  
>  print(chr(255));  
>  File "H:\Python31\lib\encodings\cp1257.py", line 19, in encode  
>  return codecs.charmap_encode(input,self.errors,encoding_table)[0]
> UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character '\xff' in
> position 0: character maps to

by the way print( TestText == TestText2.decode("utf8")); returns False...  
although print output is same...

EDIT:

How python 3 gets sys.stdout.encoding and how to change it?

I made printRAW function witch works fine :) (tnx Zack)  
(actually it encodes output to UTF-8, so in real it's not raw...)

>
>     def printRAW(*Text):  
>         RAWOut = open(1, 'w', encoding='utf8', closefd=False)  
>         print(*Text, file=RAWOut)  
>         RAWOut.flush()  
>         RAWOut.close()  
>  
>     printRAW("Cool", TestText)  
>  

output: \\\ now it print in UTF-8

> Cool Test - āĀēĒčČ..šŠūŪžŽ

printRAW(chr(252)) also nicely prints ü (in UTF-8, [xC3][xBC]) and without
errors :)

Now I'm looking for maybe better solution if there's any...


Answer: First, a correction:

    
    
    TestText = "Test - āĀēĒčČ..šŠūŪžŽ" # this NOT utf-8...it is a Unicode string in Python 3.X.
    TestText2 = TestText.encode('utf8') # THIS is "just bytes" in UTF-8.
    

Now, to send UTF-8 to stdout, regardless of the console's encoding, use the
right tool for the job:

    
    
    import sys
    sys.stdout.buffer.write(TestText2)
    

"buffer" is a raw interface to stdout.

