Unicode filenames on Windows with Python & subprocess.Popen()

Question

Why does the following occur:

>>> u\'\\u0308\'.encode(\'mbcs\')   #UMLAUT
\'\\xa8\'
>>> u\'\\u041A\'.encode(\'mbcs\')   #CYRILLIC CAPITAL L         


        

Answer 1

Docs for sys.getfilesystemencoding() say that for Windows NT and later, file names are natively Unicode. If you have a valid unicode file name, why would you bother encoding it using mbcs?

Docs for codecs module say that mbcs encodes using "ANSI code page" (which will differ depending on user's locale) so if the locale doesn't use Cyrillic characters, splat.

Edit: So your process is calling subprocess.Popen(). If your invoked process is under your control, the two processes ahould be able to agree to use UTF-8 as the Unicode Transport Format. Otherwise, you may need to ask on the pywin32 mailing list. In any case, edit your question to state the degree of control you have over the invoked process.