How to print symbols like ● to files in Python

Question

I'm trying to write the symbol ● to a text file in python. I think it has something to do with the encoding (utf-8). Here is the code:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
outFile = open('./myFile.txt', 'wb')
outFile.write("●")
outFile.close()

Instead of the black "●" I get "â—". How can I fix this?

Answer 1

Open the file using the io package for this to work with both python2 and python3 with encoding set to utf8 for this to work. When printing, When writing, write as a unicode string.

import io
outFile = io.open('./myFile.txt', 'w', encoding='utf8')
outFile.write(u'●')
outFile.close()

Tested on Python 2.7.8 and Python 3.4.2

Answer 2

If you are using Python 2, use codecs.open instead of open and unicode instead of str:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import codecs
outFile = codecs.open('./myFile.txt', 'wb', 'utf-8')
outFile.write(u"●")
outFile.close()

In Python 3, pass the encoding keyword argument to open:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
outFile = open('./myFile.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-8')
outFile.write("●")
outFile.close()