title: Error in Python Pandas when Reading CSV File
body: <p>I am trying to read a CSV File, but its throwing an error. I am not able to understand whats the problem with my syntax or do I need to add more attributes to my read_csv.</p>
  
  <p>I tried the solution on </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position
    21: invalid start byte
    as well. But its not working</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <pre><code>import pandas as pd
  
  
  #Assign file_path variable
  file_path = 'rawdump_24th_Sep.csv'
  
  #assign dataframe
  df1 = pd.read_csv(file_path,index_col=0)
  
  df.head()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>[ERROR]</strong></p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>UnicodeDecodeError                        Traceback (most recent call
    last) pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_tokens()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_with_dtype()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._string_convert()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in pandas._libs.parsers._string_box_utf8()</p>
    
    <p>UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position
    21: invalid start byte</p>
    
    <p>During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:</p>
    
    <p>UnicodeDecodeError                        Traceback (most recent call
    last)  in 
          6 
          7 #assign dataframe
    ----> 8 df1 = pd.read_csv(file_path,index_col=0)
          9 
         10 df.head()</p>
    
    <p>~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\parsers.py in
    parser_f(filepath_or_buffer, sep, delimiter, header, names, index_col,
    usecols, squeeze, prefix, mangle_dupe_cols, dtype, engine, converters,
    true_values, false_values, skipinitialspace, skiprows, skipfooter,
    nrows, na_values, keep_default_na, na_filter, verbose,
    skip_blank_lines, parse_dates, infer_datetime_format, keep_date_col,
    date_parser, dayfirst, iterator, chunksize, compression, thousands,
    decimal, lineterminator, quotechar, quoting, doublequote, escapechar,
    comment, encoding, dialect, tupleize_cols, error_bad_lines,
    warn_bad_lines, delim_whitespace, low_memory, memory_map,
    float_precision)
        700                     skip_blank_lines=skip_blank_lines)
        701 
    --> 702         return _read(filepath_or_buffer, kwds)
        703 
        704     parser_f.<strong>name</strong> = name</p>
    
    <p>~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\parsers.py in
    _read(filepath_or_buffer, kwds)
        433 
        434     try:
    --> 435         data = parser.read(nrows)
        436     finally:
        437         parser.close()</p>
    
    <p>~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\parsers.py in read(self,
    nrows)    1137     def read(self, nrows=None):    1138         nrows =
    _validate_integer('nrows', nrows)
    -> 1139         ret = self._engine.read(nrows)    1140     1141         # May alter columns / col_dict</p>
    
    <p>~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\parsers.py in read(self,
    nrows)    1993     def read(self, nrows=None):    1994         try:
    -> 1995             data = self._reader.read(nrows)    1996         except StopIteration:    1997             if self._first_chunk:</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader.read()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._read_low_memory()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._read_rows()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_column_data()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_tokens()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_with_dtype()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._string_convert()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in pandas._libs.parsers._string_box_utf8()</p>
    
    <p>UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position
    21: invalid start byte`</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATED</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>import pandas as pd
  
  
  #Assign file_path variable
  file_path = 'rawdump_24th_Sep.csv'
  
  #assign dataframe
  df1 = pd.read_csv(file_path,index_col=0)
  
  df1.head()
  </code></pre>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>UnicodeDecodeError                        Traceback (most recent call
    last) pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_tokens()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_with_dtype()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._string_convert()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in pandas._libs.parsers._string_box_utf8()</p>
    
    <p>UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position
    21: invalid start byte</p>
    
    <p>During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:</p>
    
    <p>UnicodeDecodeError                        Traceback (most recent call
    last)  in 
          6 
          7 #assign dataframe
    ----> 8 df1 = pd.read_csv(file_path,index_col=0)
          9 
         10 df1.head()</p>
    
    <p>~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\parsers.py in
    parser_f(filepath_or_buffer, sep, delimiter, header, names, index_col,
    usecols, squeeze, prefix, mangle_dupe_cols, dtype, engine, converters,
    true_values, false_values, skipinitialspace, skiprows, skipfooter,
    nrows, na_values, keep_default_na, na_filter, verbose,
    skip_blank_lines, parse_dates, infer_datetime_format, keep_date_col,
    date_parser, dayfirst, iterator, chunksize, compression, thousands,
    decimal, lineterminator, quotechar, quoting, doublequote, escapechar,
    comment, encoding, dialect, tupleize_cols, error_bad_lines,
    warn_bad_lines, delim_whitespace, low_memory, memory_map,
    float_precision)
        700                     skip_blank_lines=skip_blank_lines)
        701 
    --> 702         return _read(filepath_or_buffer, kwds)
        703 
        704     parser_f.<strong>name</strong> = name</p>
    
    <p>~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\parsers.py in
    _read(filepath_or_buffer, kwds)
        433 
        434     try:
    --> 435         data = parser.read(nrows)
        436     finally:
        437         parser.close()</p>
    
    <p>~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\parsers.py in read(self,
    nrows)    1137     def read(self, nrows=None):    1138         nrows =
    _validate_integer('nrows', nrows)
    -> 1139         ret = self._engine.read(nrows)    1140     1141         # May alter columns / col_dict</p>
    
    <p>~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\pandas\io\parsers.py in read(self,
    nrows)    1993     def read(self, nrows=None):    1994         try:
    -> 1995             data = self._reader.read(nrows)    1996         except StopIteration:    1997             if self._first_chunk:</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader.read()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._read_low_memory()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._read_rows()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_column_data()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_tokens()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._convert_with_dtype()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in
    pandas._libs.parsers.TextReader._string_convert()</p>
    
    <p>pandas/_libs/parsers.pyx in pandas._libs.parsers._string_box_utf8()</p>
    
    <p>UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position
    21: invalid start byte</p>
  </blockquote>