How to remove this \xa0 from a string in python?

Question

I have the following string:

 word = u\'Buffalo,\\xa0IL\\xa060625\'

I don\'t want the \"\\xa0\" in there. How can I get rid of it? The st

Answer 1

If you know for sure that is the only character you don't want, you can .replace it:

>>> word.replace(u'\xa0', ' ')
u'Buffalo, IL 60625'

If you need to handle all non-ascii characters, encoding and replacing bad characters might be a good start...:

>>> word.encode('ascii', 'replace')
'Buffalo,?IL?60625'