Help ! it's about ascii characters in the CodePlayground

Question

I'm using python in the CodePlayground, and here is my question :

When I try to print all usable characters, I'm tempted to write:

for i in range(256):
print(i, chr(i))

this results in getting :

---- all 128 first characters printed ----
and then :
"UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character"

Ok, but then if I try :

print(chr(230))

It gives me :"µ" printed nicely.
print(chr(256)) is the limit.

Do you understand what's happening here ?
And also, if you know a way to use other encodings/charsets inside CodePlayground (I think there's no way) with python, don't forget to tell me : )

What's the situation with other languages about this limitation ?

Answer 1

You can run this to check which chr() work

for i in range(257):
try:
print(i, chr(i))
except:
pass

Answer 2

I think it's worth a shot - no harm in asking 🙂

Answer 3

ASCII is actually 7 bits so it's 128 characters.
You are talking about extended ASCII or EASCII that have 8 bits.

This could help
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6850486/how-do-i-specify-extended-ascii-i-e-range256-in-the-JUMP_LINK__&&__python__&&__JUMP_LINK-magic-encoding-s

Edit: It’s 7bits and 8bits not bytes

Answer 4

Of course !
great !
Thank you David !

Answer 5

Do you think it's something we could ask SL team about ? It would be so nice if they could allow the use of the UTF-8 table ...

Answer 6

Ok, I'll write a mail, thank you again, David !

Answer 7

That gives us the answer :
Ascii char usable in Codeplayground are :
0-127
160-255
everything from 128 to 159 is not decoded !

Answer 8

I've tried something to try to understand a little more :

This code works sometimes :
https://code.sololearn.com/clu3BZvWpOjE/#py

This one always returns an encoding error:
https://code.sololearn.com/c3Sl3a4IY9qz/#py

Any idea ?

Answer 9

Well, it seems that only some characters won't work, that's why the range() function does not work !
I'll try to catch the bad guys when I have some time for hunting and I'll tell you.

Answer 10

@Toni Isotalo
Thanks for answering and sharing this !

So now I understand there's a difference between 0-127 and 128-255 tables, ASCII and EASCII.
But still, I don't understand why it sometimes work, sometimes not, with EASCII in the CodePlayground ?

Answer 11

I think it works when you encode it to utf-8.

Try this

print(i, chr(i).encode('utf-8'))