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
Python
docs.python.org › 3 › library › codecs.html
codecs — Codec registry and base classes
This module defines base classes for standard Python codecs (encoders and decoders) and provides access to the internal Python codec registry, which manages the codec and error handling lookup process. 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.
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].
Python's codecs Module Demystified: Encoding and Decoding ...
05:31
Encode || String Functions || Python for Beginners - YouTube
14:32
Character encoding in Python made easy - YouTube
15:15
Encode and Decode Strings | Python Basics #13 - YouTube
03:56
What Are Character Encodings For Python File I/O? - Next LVL ...
02:59
Unicode in Python - YouTube
W3Schools
w3schools.com › python › ref_module_encodings.asp
Python encodings Module
Python Examples Python Compiler ... Plan Python Interview Q&A Python Training ... The encodings package provides implementations of text encodings used by Python's codec system....
Honeybadger
honeybadger.io › blog › python-character-encoding
Python developer's guide to character encoding - Honeybadger Developer Blog
March 6, 2023 - Solving this problem led to the development of Universal Standard Encoding, Unicode. Unicode is a universal character set that defines all characters for different human languages used on computers with over one million code points. These code points refer to displayed text or characters. In Python 3, every string uses the Unicode format to represent characters by default.
Python Morsels
pythonmorsels.com › unicode-character-encodings-in-python
Unicode character encodings - Python Morsels
May 2, 2022 - On my machine, the default character encoding is utf-8. But on Windows, the default character encoding is usually cp1252. Note: Since Python 3.6, all files are read and written by Python using utf-8 by default, even on Windows.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/learnpython › the use of open(encoding="utf-8")
r/learnpython on Reddit: The use of open(encoding="utf-8")
November 2, 2020 -
When working with files, I sometimes run into UnicodeDecodeError. Apparently this is because not all unicode characters can be converted into strings, and I saw that some people solved this by adding encoding="utf-8" as a parameter, but have anyone got an idea on what this does?
Top answer 1 of 5
2
open defaults to whatever encoding your system uses by default, so it can be anything from ASCII to ISO-8859-1. You can, however, make it use a specific encoding instead. utf-8 is useful as it has most characters.
2 of 5
1
there are different ways to represent characters as bytes. utf-8 is quite common, but there's also utf-16, latin1 etc. the correct solution will depend upon the file you're opening
GitHub
gist.github.com › afeblot › 4147354f36cf7204cfcea1c07af87a7f
Encoding in Python, once and for all · GitHub
Then declare this encoding on the first line of each code file with the following expression: ... This is a specific feature of Python: if the encoding of the file is different from the language's default encoding, it must be declared, otherwise the program will crash on the first conversion.
Real Python
realpython.com › python-encodings-guide
Unicode & Character Encodings in Python: A Painless Guide – Real Python
May 20, 2019 - If you don’t see a character here, then you simply can’t express it as printed text under the ASCII encoding scheme. Click around the interactive table below to see any character’s decimal, hexadecimal, and 7-bit binary value, along with the ord() and chr() calls that convert between a character and its code point: Interactive diagram — enable JavaScript to view. ... Python’s string module is a convenient one-stop-shop for string constants that fall in ASCII’s character set.
7-Zip Documentation
documentation.help › python 2.5 › 4.8.3 standard encodings
4.8.3 Standard Encodings | Python 2.5 Documentation
A number of codecs are specific to Python, so their codec names have no meaning outside Python. Some of them don't convert from Unicode strings to byte strings, but instead use the property of the Python codecs machinery that any bijective function with one argument can be considered as an encoding.
CodeSignal
codesignal.com › learn › courses › string-manipulation-for-python-coders › lessons › navigating-the-universe-of-python-unicode-encoding-and-decoding-strings-explained
Unicode, Encoding, and Decoding Strings Explained
Python's .encode() method transforms Unicode strings into byte sequences, thereby streamlining Python's internal handling of strings.
LinkedIn
linkedin.com › pulse › my-guide-encodingdecoding-text-data-python-andrew-f
My Guide to Encoding/Decoding Text Data with Python
February 28, 2023 - For English and Western European languages, UTF-8 is typically a desirable choice. However, for languages with more complex character sets, a larger encoding scheme like UTF-16 or UTF-32 may be required.
Beautiful Soup
tedboy.github.io › python_stdlib › generated › encodings.html
encodings — Python Standard Library
Standard Python encoding modules are stored in this package directory.
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.
PyPI
pypi.org › project › encoding-tools
encoding-tools · PyPI
from encoding_tools import TheSoCalledGreatEncoder encoder = TheSoCalledGreatEncoder() encoder.load_str('hellò') encoder.encode('latin-1') encoded_string = encoder.encoded_data
» pip install encoding-tools
Python documentation
docs.python.org › 3 › howto › unicode.html
Unicode HOWTO — Python 3.14.7 documentation
Since Python 3.0, the language’s ... rocks!', or the triple-quoted string syntax is stored as Unicode. The default encoding for Python source code is UTF-8, so you can simply include a Unicode character in a string ...
Python
peps.python.org › pep-0263
PEP 263 – Defining Python Source Code Encodings | peps.python.org
This PEP proposes to introduce a syntax to declare the encoding of a Python source file. The encoding information is then used by the Python parser to interpret the file using the given encoding. Most notably this enhances the interpretation of Unicode literals in the source code and makes it possible to write Unicode literals using e.g.
DEV Community
dev.to › geraldew › character-encoding-with-the-python-os-module-and-unicode-26f2
Character Encoding with the Python os module and Unicode - DEV Community
October 5, 2024 - Note that cp1252 is the Windows-1252 superset of the ISO-8859-1 encoding standard. ... the Python os module will by-default have put the bytes it got from the file system into a Python Unicode string;
GitHub
github.com › python › cpython › blob › main › Lib › encodings › __init__.py
cpython/Lib/encodings/__init__.py at main · python/cpython
""" Standard "encodings" Package · · Standard Python encoding modules are stored in this package · directory. · Codec modules must have names corresponding to normalized encoding · names as defined in the normalize_encoding() function below, e.g.
Author: python
Song Genius API
melaniewalsh.github.io › Intro-Cultural-Analytics › 02-Python › 07-Files-Character-Encoding.html
Files & Character Encoding — Introduction to Cultural Analytics & Python
If you want to read or write a ... To open a file, you can use Python’s built-in open() function. ... Inside the open() function parentheses, you insert the filepath to be opened in quotation marks. You should also insert a character encoding, which we will talk more about ...
W3Schools
w3schools.com › python › ref_string_encode.asp
Python String encode() Method
If no encoding is specified, UTF-8 will be used.