Detect strings with non English characters in Python

Question

I have some strings that have a mix of English and none English letters. For example:

w='_1991_اف_جي2' 

How can I recognize these types of string using Regex or any other fast method in Python?

I prefer not to compare letters of the string one by one with a list of letters, but to do this in one shot and quickly.

Answer 1

You can just check whether the string can be encoded only with ASCII characters (which are Latin alphabet + some other characters). If it can not be encoded, then it has the characters from some other alphabet.

Note the comment # -*- coding: ..... It should be there at the top of the python file (otherwise you would receive some error about encoding)

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- def isEnglish(s):     try:         s.encode(encoding='utf-8').decode('ascii')     except UnicodeDecodeError:         return False     else:         return True  assert not isEnglish('slabiky, ale liší se podle významu') assert isEnglish('English') assert not isEnglish('ގެ ފުރަތަމަ ދެ އަކުރު ކަ') assert not isEnglish('how about this one : 通 asfަ') assert isEnglish('?fd4))45s&')