Python "SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\xe2' in file" [duplicate]

Question

If you are just trying to use UTF-8 characters or don't care if they are in your code, add this line to the top of your .py file

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

You've got a stray byte floating around. You can find it by running

with open("x.py") as fp:
    for i, line in enumerate(fp):
        if "\xe2" in line:
            print i, repr(line)

where you should replace "x.py" by the name of your program. You'll see the line number and the offending line(s). For example, after inserting that byte arbitrarily, I got:

4 "\xe2        lb = conn.create_load_balancer('my_lb', ['us-east-1a', 'us-east-1b'],[(80, 8080, 'http'), (443, 8443, 'tcp')])\n"

Or you could just simply use:

# coding: utf-8

at top of .py file

\xe2 is the '-' character, it appears in some copy and paste it uses a different equal looking '-' that causes encoding errors. Replace the '-'(from copy paste) with the correct '-' (from you keyboard button).

Change the file character encoding,

put below line to top of your code always

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

I had the same error while copying and pasting a comment from the web

For me it was a single quote (') in the word

I just erased it and re-typed it.