Python utf-8, howto align printout

Question

I have a array containing japanese caracters as well as \"normal\". How do I align the printout of these?

#!/usr/bin/python
# coding=utf-8

a1=[\'する\', \'します         


        

Answer 1

Use unicode objects instead of byte strings:

#!/usr/bin/python
# coding=utf-8

a1=[u'する', u'します', u'trazan', u'した', u'しました']
a2=[u'dipsy', u'laa-laa', u'banarne', u'po', u'tinky winky']

for i,j in zip(a1,a2):
    print i.ljust(12),':',j

print '-'*8

for i,j in zip(a1,a2):
    print i,len(i)
    print j,len(j)

Unicode objects deal with characters directly.