Python, unicodedata name, and codepoint value, what am i missing?

Question

I'm dealing with unicode data characters, and I wonder why some do not have any name in unicodedata? Here is a sample code where you can check the < unknown >

I thought that every characters inside unicode database were named, BTW there are all of the same category that is [Cc] Other, Control.

Another question: how can I get the unicode code point value? Is it ord(unicodechar) that does the trick?

I also put the file here (as encoding is a weird thing), and because I think that my cut n' paste with 'invisible' character may be lossy.

#!/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

#extracted and licensing from here:
"""
:author: Laurent Pointal <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
:organization: CNRS - LIMSI
:copyright: CNRS - 2004-2009
:license: GNU-GPL Version 3 or greater
:version: $Id$
"""

# Chars alonemarks:
#         !?¿;,*¤@°:%|¦/()[]{}<>«»´`¨&~=#±£¥$©®"
# must have spaces around them to make them tokens.
# Notes: they may be in pchar or fchar too, to identify punctuation after
#        a fchar.
#        \202 is a special ,
#        \226 \227 are special -
alonemarks = u"!?¿;,\202*¤@°:%|¦/()[\]{}<>«»´`¨&~=#±\226"+\
     u"\227£¥$©®\""
import unicodedata
for x in alonemarks:
    unicodename = unicodedata.name(x, '<unknown>')
    print "\t".join(map(unicode, (x, len(x), ord(x), unicodename, unicodedata.category(x))))

    # unichr(int('fd9b', 16)).encode('utf-8')
    # http://stackoverflow.com/questions/867866/convert-unicode-codepoint-to-utf8-hex-in-python    

Answer 1

I thought that every characters inside unicode database were named

No, control characters don't have names, see UnicodeData file

Another question: how can I get the unicode code point value? Is it ord(unicodechar) that does the trick?

yes!

print '%x' % ord(unicodedata.lookup('LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL Z'))
## 1d22

Answer 2

As per unicodedata library documentation,

The module uses the same names and symbols as defined by the UnicodeData File Format 5.2.0 (see here)

Your two characters display the following output:

1   150 <unknown>   Cc
1   151 <unknown>   Cc

They correspond to control points characters 0x96 and 0x97 The unicode documentation above stipulates in the code point paragraph that:

Surrogate code points, private-use characters, control codes, noncharacters, and unassigned code points have no names.

I don't know how to get the label comment corresponding to the unicode comments through unicodedata module, but I think you don't get any name for your two control characters because it is defined that way by Unicode norm.