How to Handle a UnicodeDecodeError When Opening a File in Python?

UnicodeDecodeError: Handling Invalid Byte Sequences in File Handling

When encountering the error "UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte" while using the for line in open(...) construct, it indicates an issue with the file encoding.

In the given code snippet, attempting to open the file with utf-8 encoding using open('u.item', encoding='utf-8') does not resolve the issue. This is because the file may be using a different encoding than utf-8.

To determine the correct encoding, you can try using the chardet library to analyze the file and identify its encoding. Alternatively, you can refer to the file's documentation or metadata to find information about the encoding used.

Once you have determined the correct encoding, you can specify it in the open() function as follows:

<code class="python">for line in open('u.item', encoding="encoding_name"):
    # Read each line</code>

In the provided solution, the file was found to be encoded in "ISO-8859-1", so the correct code would be:

<code class="python">for line in open('u.item', encoding="ISO-8859-1"):
    # Read each line</code>

By specifying the correct encoding, you will be able to decode the file's contents correctly and avoid the UnicodeDecodeError.

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