Other answers here seem to indicate that constructing this list programmatically is difficult and fraught with traps. However, doing so is probably unnecessary since the documentation contains a complete list of the standard encodings Python supports, and has done since Python 2.3.
You can find these lists (for each stable version of the language so far released) at:
- https://docs.python.org/2.3/lib/node130.html
- https://docs.python.org/2.4/lib/standard-encodings.html
- https://docs.python.org/2.5/lib/standard-encodings.html
- https://docs.python.org/2.6/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.0/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.1/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.2/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.3/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.8/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.9/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.10/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.11/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.12/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.13/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
Below are the lists for each documented version of Python. Note that if you want backwards-compatibility rather than just supporting a particular version of Python, you can just copy the list from the latest Python version and check whether each encoding exists in the Python running your program before trying to use it.
Python 2.3 (59 encodings)
['ascii',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8']
Python 2.4 (85 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8']
Python 2.5 (86 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 2.6 (90 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 2.7 (93 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_11',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.0 (89 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.1 (90 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.2 (92 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.3 (93 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'cp65001',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.4 (96 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp273',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1125',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'cp65001',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_11',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.5 (98 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp273',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1125',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'cp65001',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_11',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_t',
'koi8_u',
'kz1048',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.6 (98 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.7 (98 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.8 (97 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp273',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1125',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_11',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_t',
'koi8_u',
'kz1048',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.9 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.10 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.11 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.12 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.13 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
In case they're relevant to anyone's use case, note that the docs also list some Python-specific encodings, many of which seem to be primarily for use by Python's internals or are otherwise weird in some way, like the 'undefined' encoding which always throws an exception if you try to use it. You probably want to ignore these completely if, like the question-asker here, you're trying to figure out what encoding was used for some text you've come across in the real world. As of Python 3.7, the list is as follows:
["idna",
"mbcs",
"oem",
"palmos",
"punycode",
"raw_unicode_escape",
"rot_13",
"undefined",
"unicode_escape",
"unicode_internal",
"base64_codec",
"bz2_codec",
"hex_codec",
"quopri_codec",
"uu_codec",
"zlib_codec"]
Some older Python versions had a string_escape special encoding that I've not included in the above list because it's been removed from the language.
Finally, in case you'd like to update my tables above for a newer version of Python, here's the (crude, not very robust) script I used to generate them:
import re
import requests
import lxml.html
import pprint
previous = None
for version, url in [
('2.3', 'https://docs.python.org/2.3/lib/node130.html'),
('2.4', 'https://docs.python.org/2.4/lib/standard-encodings.html'),
('2.5', 'https://docs.python.org/2.5/lib/standard-encodings.html'),
('2.6', 'https://docs.python.org/2.6/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('2.7', 'https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.0', 'https://docs.python.org/3.0/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.1', 'https://docs.python.org/3.1/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.2', 'https://docs.python.org/3.2/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.3', 'https://docs.python.org/3.3/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.4', 'https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.5', 'https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.6', 'https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.7', 'https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.8', 'https://docs.python.org/3.8/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.9', 'https://docs.python.org/3.9/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.10', 'https://docs.python.org/3.10/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.11', 'https://docs.python.org/3.11/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.12', 'https://docs.python.org/3.12/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.13', 'https://docs.python.org/3.13/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
]:
html = requests.get(url).text
# Work-around for weird HTML markup in recent versions of Python documentation:
html = re.sub('<[/]?p>', '', html)
doc = lxml.html.fromstring(html)
standard_encodings_table = doc.xpath(
'//table[preceding::h2[.//text()[contains(., "Standard Encodings")]]][//th/text()="Codec"]'
)[0]
codecs = standard_encodings_table.xpath('.//td[1]/text()')
print("## Python %s (%i encodings)\n" % (version, len(codecs)))
if codecs == previous:
print('_Same as previous version._\n')
else:
print('```python\n' + pprint.pformat(codecs) + '\n```\n')
previous = codecs
The Python Coding Stack
thepythoncodingstack.com › the python coding stack › `bytes`: the lesser-known python built-in sequence • and understanding utf-8 encoding
`bytes`: The Lesser-Known Python Built-In Sequence • And Understanding UTF-8 Encoding
July 15, 2025 - We've seen bytes with leading patterns of 10, 110, 1110, and 11110. Those starting with 10 show they're continuation bytes, and the rest show they're the start of a group of bytes. There's one more type of byte in the UTF-8 encoding: when the first 0 is the highest bit (the leftmost one):
Python
docs.python.org › 3 › library › codecs.html
codecs — Codec registry and base classes
Most standard codecs are text encodings, which encode text to bytes (and decode bytes to text), but there are also codecs provided that encode text to text, and bytes to bytes. Custom codecs may encode and decode between arbitrary types, but some module features are restricted to be used specifically with text encodings or with codecs that encode to bytes.
Python 3 - Encode/Decode vs Bytes/Str - Stack Overflow
That's why we need bytes() in the community. Any weird text can be like \xe5\xb2\x81\xe5\xb0\x91\xe5\xa6\x87\xe7\x94\x9f\xe5\xad\xa9\xe5\xad\x90\xe5\x90\x8e\xe5\x8f\x98\xe8\x80\x81 :P ... Save this answer. ... Show activity on this post. Neither is better than the other, they do exactly the same thing. However, using .encode() and .decode() is the more common way to do it. It is also compatible with Python ... More on stackoverflow.com
What's the difference between a b string and .encode()?
There is no difference for this specific example. However, you can't always use byte literals, for example, if you're dealing with user input. More on reddit.com
6
9
April 13, 2021Explain it like I'm five: Python and Unicode?
There are two types of strings in python: byte strings and unicode strings. Each element in a byte string is a byte. There are only 256 possible bytes. Each element in a unicode string is a character (also called a unicode code point). There are a little over a million characters defined in unicode. Meaning each element/character in a unicode string can be one of those million characters. Byte strings are useful because you can write them to files, transmit them over the network, etc. Unicode strings are useful because you can store pretty much any character that exists. So people usually like to manipulate unicode strings in their programs. But how do you convert a unicode string to a byte string? You encode it. An encoding is a representation of a unicode string. It defines a byte or byte sequence for every* unicode code point; essentially a translation table. For every unicode code point, there is a byte or sequence of bytes. There's more to it than that, but those are the essential bits you need to know. What this means when you're writing a program is that you want to manipulate unicode strings throughout, and when you want to output a string (to a file, or over the network), you encode it. When you read in a byte string from external sources, you decode it. Does that make sense? *some encodings may not support every unicode character; they may only support some subset of unicode. UTF-8 is nice because it supports everything. It defines a sequence of bytes for every unicode character. More on reddit.com
60
106
June 12, 2013From hex to base64 without encoding
You need to convert them like this (Python3): import codecs hex = "10000000000002ae" b64 = codecs.encode(codecs.decode(hex, 'hex'), 'base64').decode() I don't know what you mean with "without implementing encodings", but that's how you can convert hex to base64. More on reddit.com
4
4
March 2, 202108:35
str vs bytes in Python - YouTube
14:32
Character encoding in Python made easy - YouTube
08:16
Python standard library: Byte strings (the "bytes" type) - YouTube
07:15
Python standard library: Encoding and decoding strings - YouTube
09:36
Bytes and encodings in Python - YouTube
04:11
How To Encode String To Bytes In Python - YouTube
Top answer 1 of 10
159
Other answers here seem to indicate that constructing this list programmatically is difficult and fraught with traps. However, doing so is probably unnecessary since the documentation contains a complete list of the standard encodings Python supports, and has done since Python 2.3.
You can find these lists (for each stable version of the language so far released) at:
- https://docs.python.org/2.3/lib/node130.html
- https://docs.python.org/2.4/lib/standard-encodings.html
- https://docs.python.org/2.5/lib/standard-encodings.html
- https://docs.python.org/2.6/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.0/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.1/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.2/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.3/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.8/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.9/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.10/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.11/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.12/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
- https://docs.python.org/3.13/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings
Below are the lists for each documented version of Python. Note that if you want backwards-compatibility rather than just supporting a particular version of Python, you can just copy the list from the latest Python version and check whether each encoding exists in the Python running your program before trying to use it.
Python 2.3 (59 encodings)
['ascii',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8']
Python 2.4 (85 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8']
Python 2.5 (86 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 2.6 (90 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 2.7 (93 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_11',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.0 (89 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.1 (90 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.2 (92 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.3 (93 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'cp65001',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.4 (96 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp273',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1125',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'cp65001',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_11',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_u',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.5 (98 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp273',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1125',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'cp65001',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_11',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_t',
'koi8_u',
'kz1048',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.6 (98 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.7 (98 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.8 (97 encodings)
['ascii',
'big5',
'big5hkscs',
'cp037',
'cp273',
'cp424',
'cp437',
'cp500',
'cp720',
'cp737',
'cp775',
'cp850',
'cp852',
'cp855',
'cp856',
'cp857',
'cp858',
'cp860',
'cp861',
'cp862',
'cp863',
'cp864',
'cp865',
'cp866',
'cp869',
'cp874',
'cp875',
'cp932',
'cp949',
'cp950',
'cp1006',
'cp1026',
'cp1125',
'cp1140',
'cp1250',
'cp1251',
'cp1252',
'cp1253',
'cp1254',
'cp1255',
'cp1256',
'cp1257',
'cp1258',
'euc_jp',
'euc_jis_2004',
'euc_jisx0213',
'euc_kr',
'gb2312',
'gbk',
'gb18030',
'hz',
'iso2022_jp',
'iso2022_jp_1',
'iso2022_jp_2',
'iso2022_jp_2004',
'iso2022_jp_3',
'iso2022_jp_ext',
'iso2022_kr',
'latin_1',
'iso8859_2',
'iso8859_3',
'iso8859_4',
'iso8859_5',
'iso8859_6',
'iso8859_7',
'iso8859_8',
'iso8859_9',
'iso8859_10',
'iso8859_11',
'iso8859_13',
'iso8859_14',
'iso8859_15',
'iso8859_16',
'johab',
'koi8_r',
'koi8_t',
'koi8_u',
'kz1048',
'mac_cyrillic',
'mac_greek',
'mac_iceland',
'mac_latin2',
'mac_roman',
'mac_turkish',
'ptcp154',
'shift_jis',
'shift_jis_2004',
'shift_jisx0213',
'utf_32',
'utf_32_be',
'utf_32_le',
'utf_16',
'utf_16_be',
'utf_16_le',
'utf_7',
'utf_8',
'utf_8_sig']
Python 3.9 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.10 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.11 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.12 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
Python 3.13 (97 encodings)
Same as previous version.
In case they're relevant to anyone's use case, note that the docs also list some Python-specific encodings, many of which seem to be primarily for use by Python's internals or are otherwise weird in some way, like the 'undefined' encoding which always throws an exception if you try to use it. You probably want to ignore these completely if, like the question-asker here, you're trying to figure out what encoding was used for some text you've come across in the real world. As of Python 3.7, the list is as follows:
["idna",
"mbcs",
"oem",
"palmos",
"punycode",
"raw_unicode_escape",
"rot_13",
"undefined",
"unicode_escape",
"unicode_internal",
"base64_codec",
"bz2_codec",
"hex_codec",
"quopri_codec",
"uu_codec",
"zlib_codec"]
Some older Python versions had a string_escape special encoding that I've not included in the above list because it's been removed from the language.
Finally, in case you'd like to update my tables above for a newer version of Python, here's the (crude, not very robust) script I used to generate them:
import re
import requests
import lxml.html
import pprint
previous = None
for version, url in [
('2.3', 'https://docs.python.org/2.3/lib/node130.html'),
('2.4', 'https://docs.python.org/2.4/lib/standard-encodings.html'),
('2.5', 'https://docs.python.org/2.5/lib/standard-encodings.html'),
('2.6', 'https://docs.python.org/2.6/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('2.7', 'https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.0', 'https://docs.python.org/3.0/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.1', 'https://docs.python.org/3.1/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.2', 'https://docs.python.org/3.2/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.3', 'https://docs.python.org/3.3/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.4', 'https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.5', 'https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.6', 'https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.7', 'https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.8', 'https://docs.python.org/3.8/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.9', 'https://docs.python.org/3.9/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.10', 'https://docs.python.org/3.10/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.11', 'https://docs.python.org/3.11/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.12', 'https://docs.python.org/3.12/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
('3.13', 'https://docs.python.org/3.13/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings'),
]:
html = requests.get(url).text
# Work-around for weird HTML markup in recent versions of Python documentation:
html = re.sub('<[/]?p>', '', html)
doc = lxml.html.fromstring(html)
standard_encodings_table = doc.xpath(
'//table[preceding::h2[.//text()[contains(., "Standard Encodings")]]][//th/text()="Codec"]'
)[0]
codecs = standard_encodings_table.xpath('.//td[1]/text()')
print("## Python %s (%i encodings)\n" % (version, len(codecs)))
if codecs == previous:
print('_Same as previous version._\n')
else:
print('```python\n' + pprint.pformat(codecs) + '\n```\n')
previous = codecs
2 of 10
49
Unfortunately encodings.aliases.aliases.keys() is NOT an appropriate answer.
aliases(as one would/should expect) contains several cases where different keys are mapped to the same value e.g. 1252 and windows_1252 are both mapped to cp1252. You could save time if instead of aliases.keys() you use set(aliases.values()).
BUT THERE'S A WORSE PROBLEM: aliases doesn't contain codecs that don't have aliases (like cp856, cp874, cp875, cp737, and koi8_u).
>>> from encodings.aliases import aliases
>>> def find(q):
... return [(k,v) for k, v in aliases.items() if q in k or q in v]
...
>>> find('1252') # multiple aliases
[('1252', 'cp1252'), ('windows_1252', 'cp1252')]
>>> find('856') # no codepage 856 in aliases
[]
>>> find('koi8') # no koi8_u in aliases
[('cskoi8r', 'koi8_r')]
>>> 'x'.decode('cp856') # but cp856 is a valid codec
u'x'
>>> 'x'.decode('koi8_u') # but koi8_u is a valid codec
u'x'
>>>
It's also worth noting that however you obtain a full list of codecs, it may be a good idea to ignore the codecs that aren't about encoding/decoding character sets, but do some other transformation e.g. zlib, quopri, and base64.
Which brings us to the question of WHY you want to "try encoding bytes into many different encodings". If we know that, we may be able to steer you in the right direction.
For a start, that's ambiguous. One DEcodes bytes into unicode, and one ENcodes unicode into bytes. Which do you want to do?
What are you really trying to achieve: Are you trying to determine which codec to use to decode some incoming bytes, and plan to attempt this with all possible codecs? [note: latin1 will decode anything] Are you trying to determine the language of some unicode text by trying to encode it with all possible codecs? [note: utf8 will encode anything].
Honeybadger
honeybadger.io › blog › python-character-encoding
Python developer's guide to character encoding - Honeybadger Developer Blog
March 6, 2023 - In this case, character encoding converts the character you select into the correct bytes in the computer’s memory before reading the bytes back into characters to show the text. As stated previously, Python 3 has two data types: strings and bytes.
Real Python
realpython.com › python-encodings-guide
Unicode & Character Encodings in Python: A Painless Guide – Real Python
May 20, 2019 - This means that you don’t need # -*- coding: UTF-8 -*- at the top of .py files in Python 3. All text (str) is Unicode by default. Encoded Unicode text is represented as binary data (bytes). The str type can contain any literal Unicode character, such as "Δv / Δt", all of which will be stored as Unicode.
GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python › python-bytes-method
Python bytes() method - GeeksforGeeks
July 11, 2025 - If the string contains characters from other languages, we can specify a different encoding: ... a = "गीक्स" b = bytes(a, 'utf-16') # Converts the string to bytes using UTF-16 encoding print(b) ... Python String to bytes using the ...
Real Python
realpython.com › ref › builtin-types › bytes
bytes | Python’s Built-in Data Types – Real Python
The built-in bytes data type allows you to represent and manipulate immutable sequences of bytes, which are numbers in the range 0 <= x < 256. This data type is particularly useful for handling binary data, encoding and decoding text, file input and output, and network communication:
Python documentation
docs.python.org › 3 › howto › unicode.html
Unicode HOWTO — Python 3.14.7 documentation
UTF stands for “Unicode Transformation Format”, and the ‘8’ means that 8-bit values are used in the encoding. (There are also UTF-16 and UTF-32 encodings, but they are less frequently used than UTF-8.) UTF-8 uses the following rules: If the code point is < 128, it’s represented by the corresponding byte value.
Medium
medium.com › @saint_sdmn › understanding-python-encodings-cfb4e4cf68e0
Understanding Encodings in Python | by Alexander Svito | Medium
May 30, 2022 - Depending on whether the first byte of these 4 will be the most significant or the least significanct one, the encoding can be Big-Endian (BE) or Little-Endian (LE). In order to tell the software how to read the file, encoded with UTF-32 or ...
Runebook.dev
runebook.dev › en › docs › python › library › stdtypes › bytes
The Python bytes Type: Decoding Common Troubles and Bytearray Solutions
It's used to represent binary data, like images, files, or network packets, unlike the str type, which represents textual data (Unicode characters). When you print a bytes literal, it's prefixed with a b and non-ASCII bytes are shown as hexadecimal escape sequences (e.g., \x00, \xff). # A bytes object binary_data = b"Hello" print(binary_data) # Output: b'Hello' # Bytes containing a non-ASCII character (encoded in UTF-8) encoded_japanese = "こんにちは".encode("utf-8") print(encoded_japanese) # Output: b'\xe3\x81\x93\xe3\x82\x93\xe3\x81\xab\xe3\x81\xa1\xe3\x81\xaf'
Real Python
realpython.com › python-bytes
Bytes Objects: Handling Binary Data in Python – Real Python
March 5, 2025 - Python only understands unsigned bytes, but there are ways to emulate signed bytes should you need to—more on that later. Note: You could theoretically represent a floating-point number on a single byte by encoding the sign, exponent, and mantissa using fewer bits. However, such a data type would suffer from extremely low precision and a limited range of values, rendering it impractical.
Mimo
mimo.org › glossary › python › bytes
Python Bytes: Syntax, Usage, and Examples
For lower-level conversions, built-in functions like ord() and chr() or tools in the codecs module can handle specialized encodings. If you need a mutable version of bytes, Python provides the bytearray type.
w3resource
w3resource.com › python › python-bytes.php
Python Bytes, Bytearray
Python supports a range of types to store sequences. There are six sequence types: strings, byte sequences (bytes objects), byte arrays (bytearray objects), lists, tuples, and range objects.
Gitbooks
hacktec.gitbooks.io › effective-python › content › en › Chapter1 › Item3.html
Item 3: Know the Differences Between bytes, str, and unicode · Effective Python
Instances of bytes contain raw 8-bit values. Instances of str contain Unicode characters. In Python 2, there are two types that represent sequences of characters: str and unicode. In contrast to Python 3, instances of str contain raw 8-bit values. Instances of unicode contain Unicode characters.
Runebook.dev
runebook.dev › en › docs › python › glossary › term-bytes-like-object
Python's Bytes vs. Strings: A Friendly Guide to Common TypeErrors
In Python, a bytes-like object ... to other objects without needing to be copied. The most common types are bytes, bytearray, and memoryview....
Top answer 1 of 3
74
Neither is better than the other, they do exactly the same thing. However, using .encode() and .decode() is the more common way to do it. It is also compatible with Python 2.
2 of 3
19
To add to Lennart Regebro's answer There is even the third way that can be used:
encoded3 = str.encode(original, 'utf-8')
print(encoded3)
Anyway, it is actually exactly the same as the first approach. It may also look that the second way is a syntactic sugar for the third approach.
A programming language is a means to express abstract ideas formally, to be executed by the machine. A programming language is considered good if it contains constructs that one needs. Python is a hybrid language -- i.e. more natural and more versatile than pure OO or pure procedural languages. Sometimes functions are more appropriate than the object methods, sometimes the reverse is true. It depends on mental picture of the solved problem.
Anyway, the feature mentioned in the question is probably a by-product of the language implementation/design. In my opinion, this is a nice example that show the alternative thinking about technically the same thing.
In other words, calling an object method means thinking in terms "let the object gives me the wanted result". Calling a function as the alternative means "let the outer code processes the passed argument and extracts the wanted value".
The first approach emphasizes the ability of the object to do the task on its own, the second approach emphasizes the ability of an separate algoritm to extract the data. Sometimes, the separate code may be that much special that it is not wise to add it as a general method to the class of the object.
Educative
educative.io › answers › what-is-bytesdecode-in-python
What is bytes.decode() in Python?
It is used for binary data manipulation. bytes.decode(encoding='utf-8', errors='strict') encoding: This shows the encoding scheme to be used. For example, ascii, utf8, or others. error: This shows the error handling scheme that will be used.
TakoVibe
takovibe.com › home › blog › python bytes vs string (str): differences, encoding, and when to use each
Python Bytes vs String (str): Differences, Encoding, and When to Use Each | Rahul Beniwal | TakoVibe
August 2, 2025 - ❗ If you decode using the wrong encoding, data becomes corrupted. This is one of the most common Unicode bugs in Python. String1 = b"String" String2 = "String" print(list(String1)) print(list(String2)) ... Bytes compare numerically, strings compare lexicographically. ... The Python interpreter automatically sets the constant __debug__ when it starts. If __debug__ is False, assert Statements will not execute. str and bytes are two independent types in Python.
Python Basics
python-basics-tutorial.readthedocs.io › en › latest › types › strings › encodings.html
Unicode and character encodings - Python Basics
8-bit · While Unicode is an abstract encoding standard, UTF-8 is a concrete encoding scheme. The Unicode standard is a mapping of characters to code points and defines several different encodings from a single character set.
Python Basics
python-basics-tutorial.readthedocs.io › en › 24.3.0 › appendix › encodings.html
Unicode and character encodings - Python Basics 24.3.0
What’s New In Python 3.0: Text Vs. Data Instead Of Unicode Vs. 8-bit · While Unicode is an abstract encoding standard, UTF-8 is a concrete encoding scheme. The Unicode standard is a mapping of characters to code points and defines several different encodings from a single character set. UTF-8 is an encoding scheme for representing Unicode characters as binary data with one or more bytes per character. The str type is intended for the representation of human-readable text and can contain all Unicode characters.