Python script output fails: "... 'ascii' codec can't encode character .."

Question

I am running one python script with 2 properties. It is being executed successfully on linux server. Python version is 2.7.18

python test.py arg1 arg2

If I try to put output to the file execution fails.

python test.py arg1 arg2 > output.txt
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test2.py", line 462, in <module>
    main()
  File "test.py", line 457, in main
    git_migrate(logfile, args[0], args[1], args[2], depot)
  File "test.py", line 397, in git_migrate
    print ('#### transaction[0].text ####:'+transaction[0].text)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\u201c' in position 127: ordinal not in range(128)

Edited: Added problematic part of the code which processes XML file and write that part of the code in the output as well

logfile='/tmp/tmp.xml'
print ('entered git_migrate ')
tree = ElemTree.parse(logfile)
root = tree.getroot()
transactions = []
print ('prepare to enter root loop')
for transaction in root.iter('transaction'):
    if transaction[0].text:
        print ('#### transaction[0].text ####:'+str(transaction[0].text))
        print ('     transaction.id:'+transaction.attrib['id'])
        print ('     transaction.user:'+transaction.attrib['user'])
        print ('     transaction.time:'+transaction.attrib['time'])
        transactions.append(
            [transaction.attrib['id'], transaction[0].text, transaction.attrib['user'], transaction.attrib['time']])
    else:
        print (" NO transaction comment or text!!!!! Nothing will be added to the list ")

What can be done so that output is saved to the file? Thank you!

Answer 1

Looking at the error, seems like you are trying to convert a Unicode character to an Ascii character. Did you try writing to file with utf-8 encoding or escape the unicode character.

Also without source code it would not be possible to give any more inputs.