4.9.2 Standard Encodings

Python comes with a number of codecs builtin, either implemented as C functions, or with dictionaries as mapping tables. The following table lists the codecs by name, together with a few common aliases, and the languages for which the encoding is likely used. Neither the list of aliases nor the list of languages is meant to be exhaustive. Notice that spelling alternatives that only differ in case or use a hyphen instead of an underscore are also valid aliases.

Many of the character sets support the same languages. They vary in individual characters (e.g. whether the EURO SIGN is supported or not), and in the assignment of characters to code positions. For the European languages in particular, the following variants typically exist:

Codec	Aliases	Languages
ascii	646, us-ascii	English
big5	big5-tw, csbig5	Traditional Chinese
big5hkscs	big5-hkscs, hkscs	Traditional Chinese
cp037	IBM037, IBM039	English
cp424	EBCDIC-CP-HE, IBM424	Hebrew
cp437	437, IBM437	English
cp500	EBCDIC-CP-BE, EBCDIC-CP-CH, IBM500	Western Europe
cp737		Greek
cp775	IBM775	Baltic languages
cp850	850, IBM850	Western Europe
cp852	852, IBM852	Central and Eastern Europe
cp855	855, IBM855	Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian
cp856		Hebrew
cp857	857, IBM857	Turkish
cp860	860, IBM860	Portuguese
cp861	861, CP-IS, IBM861	Icelandic
cp862	862, IBM862	Hebrew
cp863	863, IBM863	Canadian
cp864	IBM864	Arabic
cp865	865, IBM865	Danish, Norwegian
cp866	866, IBM866	Russian
cp869	869, CP-GR, IBM869	Greek
cp874		Thai
cp875		Greek
cp932	932, ms932, mskanji, ms-kanji	Japanese
cp949	949, ms949, uhc	Korean
cp950	950, ms950	Traditional Chinese
cp1006		Urdu
cp1026	ibm1026	Turkish
cp1140	ibm1140	Western Europe
cp1250	windows-1250	Central and Eastern Europe
cp1251	windows-1251	Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian
cp1252	windows-1252	Western Europe
cp1253	windows-1253	Greek
cp1254	windows-1254	Turkish
cp1255	windows-1255	Hebrew
cp1256	windows1256	Arabic
cp1257	windows-1257	Baltic languages
cp1258	windows-1258	Vietnamese
euc_jp	eucjp, ujis, u-jis	Japanese
euc_jis_2004	jisx0213, eucjis2004	Japanese
euc_jisx0213	eucjisx0213	Japanese
euc_kr	euckr, korean, ksc5601, ks_c-5601, ks_c-5601-1987, ksx1001, ks_x-1001	Korean
gb2312	chinese, csiso58gb231280, euc-cn, euccn, eucgb2312-cn, gb2312-1980, gb2312-80, iso-ir-58	Simplified Chinese
gbk	936, cp936, ms936	Unified Chinese
gb18030	gb18030-2000	Unified Chinese
hz	hzgb, hz-gb, hz-gb-2312	Simplified Chinese
iso2022_jp	csiso2022jp, iso2022jp, iso-2022-jp	Japanese
iso2022_jp_1	iso2022jp-1, iso-2022-jp-1	Japanese
iso2022_jp_2	iso2022jp-2, iso-2022-jp-2	Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Western Europe, Greek
iso2022_jp_2004	iso2022jp-2004, iso-2022-jp-2004	Japanese
iso2022_jp_3	iso2022jp-3, iso-2022-jp-3	Japanese
iso2022_jp_ext	iso2022jp-ext, iso-2022-jp-ext	Japanese
iso2022_kr	csiso2022kr, iso2022kr, iso-2022-kr	Korean
latin_1	iso-8859-1, iso8859-1, 8859, cp819, latin, latin1, L1	West Europe
iso8859_2	iso-8859-2, latin2, L2	Central and Eastern Europe
iso8859_3	iso-8859-3, latin3, L3	Esperanto, Maltese
iso8859_4	iso-8859-4, latin4, L4	Baltic languagues
iso8859_5	iso-8859-5, cyrillic	Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian
iso8859_6	iso-8859-6, arabic	Arabic
iso8859_7	iso-8859-7, greek, greek8	Greek
iso8859_8	iso-8859-8, hebrew	Hebrew
iso8859_9	iso-8859-9, latin5, L5	Turkish
iso8859_10	iso-8859-10, latin6, L6	Nordic languages
iso8859_13	iso-8859-13	Baltic languages
iso8859_14	iso-8859-14, latin8, L8	Celtic languages
iso8859_15	iso-8859-15	Western Europe
johab	cp1361, ms1361	Korean
koi8_r		Russian
koi8_u		Ukrainian
mac_cyrillic	maccyrillic	Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian
mac_greek	macgreek	Greek
mac_iceland	maciceland	Icelandic
mac_latin2	maclatin2, maccentraleurope	Central and Eastern Europe
mac_roman	macroman	Western Europe
mac_turkish	macturkish	Turkish
ptcp154	csptcp154, pt154, cp154, cyrillic-asian	Kazakh
shift_jis	csshiftjis, shiftjis, sjis, s_jis	Japanese
shift_jis_2004	shiftjis2004, sjis_2004, sjis2004	Japanese
shift_jisx0213	shiftjisx0213, sjisx0213, s_jisx0213	Japanese
utf_16	U16, utf16	all languages
utf_16_be	UTF-16BE	all languages (BMP only)
utf_16_le	UTF-16LE	all languages (BMP only)
utf_7	U7	all languages
utf_8	U8, UTF, utf8	all languages

A number of codecs are specific to Python, so their codec names have no meaning outside Python. Some of them don't convert from Unicode strings to byte strings, but instead use the property of the Python codecs machinery that any bijective function with one argument can be considered as an encoding.

For the codecs listed below, the result in the ``encoding'' direction is always a byte string. The result of the ``decoding'' direction is listed as operand type in the table.

Codec	Aliases	Operand type	Purpose
base64_codec	base64, base-64	byte string	Convert operand to MIME base64
bz2_codec	bz2	byte string	Compress the operand using bz2
hex_codec	hex	byte string	Convert operand to hexadecimal representation, with two digits per byte
idna		Unicode string	Implements RFC 3490. New in version 2.3. See also `encodings.idna`
mbcs	dbcs	Unicode string	Windows only: Encode operand according to the ANSI codepage (CP_ACP)
palmos		Unicode string	Encoding of PalmOS 3.5
punycode		Unicode string	Implements RFC 3492. New in version 2.3.
quopri_codec	quopri, quoted-printable, quotedprintable	byte string	Convert operand to MIME quoted printable
raw_unicode_escape		Unicode string	Produce a string that is suitable as raw Unicode literal in Python source code
rot_13	rot13	byte string	Returns the Caesar-cypher encryption of the operand
string_escape		byte string	Produce a string that is suitable as string literal in Python source code
undefined		any	Raise an exception for all conversion. Can be used as the system encoding if no automatic coercion between byte and Unicode strings is desired.
unicode_escape		Unicode string	Produce a string that is suitable as Unicode literal in Python source code
unicode_internal		Unicode string	Return the internal representation of the operand
uu_codec	uu	byte string	Convert the operand using uuencode
zlib_codec	zip, zlib	byte string	Compress the operand using gzip