Transform URL string into normal string in Python ( to space etc)

Question

Is there any way in Python to transform this %CE%B1%CE%BB%20 into this αλ which is its real representation?

Answer 1

There are two encodings in play here. Your string has first been encoded as UTF-8, then each byte has been percent-encoded.

To get the original string back you need to first unquote it, and then decode it:

>>> import urllib
>>> s = '%CE%B1%CE%BB%20'
>>> result = urllib.unquote(s).decode('utf8')
>>> print result
αλ 

Note that you need a Unicode enabled console in order to display the value (if you get an error with the print statement, try running it in IDLE).