Why Does My Database Return a 'UnicodeEncodeError: latin-1 codec can't encode character' and How Do I Fix It?

Understanding 'UnicodeEncodeError: latin-1 codec can't encode character'

When attempting to insert non-standard characters into a database, you may encounter the 'UnicodeEncodeError'. This error arises when the 'latin-1' codec fails to encode a character due to its ordinal value falling outside the acceptable range (0-255).

Resolving the Error

To resolve this issue and allow the insertion of foreign characters, you can modify the character set settings in the database connection. Here's a step-by-step guide for Python MySQLdb users:

1. Connect to the database:

   db = MySQLdb.connect(host='db_host', user='db_user', passwd='db_password', db='db_name')

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2. Set the database character set:

   db.set_character_set('utf8')

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3. Execute the following SQL commands on the database cursor:

   dbc = db.cursor()
   dbc.execute('SET NAMES utf8;')
   dbc.execute('SET CHARACTER SET utf8;')
   dbc.execute('SET character_set_connection=utf8;')

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4. Close the cursor and commit the changes:

   dbc.close()
   db.commit()

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After executing these commands, the connection's character set will be set to UTF-8, enabling it to handle foreign characters without the UnicodeEncodeError.

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