#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
latin1_to_ascii -- The UNICODE Hammer -- AKA "The Stupid American"
This takes a UNICODE string and replaces Latin-1 characters with
something equivalent in 7-bit ASCII. This returns a plain ASCII string.
This function makes a best effort to convert Latin-1 characters into
ASCII equivalents. It does not just strip out the Latin1 characters.
All characters in the standard 7-bit ASCII range are preserved.
In the 8th bit range all the Latin-1 accented letters are converted to
unaccented equivalents. Most symbol characters are converted to
something meaningful. Anything not converted is deleted.
Background:
One of my clients gets address data from Europe, but most of their systems
cannot handle Latin-1 characters. With all due respect to the umlaut,
scharfes s, cedilla, and all the other fine accented characters of Europe,
all I needed to do was to prepare addresses for a shipping system.
After getting headaches trying to deal with this problem using Python's
built-in UNICODE support I gave up and decided to use some brute force.
This function converts all accented letters to their unaccented equivalents.
I realize this is dirty, but for my purposes the mail gets delivered.
"""
def latin1_to_ascii (unicrap):
"""This takes a UNICODE string and replaces Latin-1 characters with
something equivalent in 7-bit ASCII. It returns a plain ASCII string.
This function makes a best effort to convert Latin-1 characters into
ASCII equivalents. It does not just strip out the Latin-1 characters.
All characters in the standard 7-bit ASCII range are preserved.
In the 8th bit range all the Latin-1 accented letters are converted
to unaccented equivalents. Most symbol characters are converted to
something meaningful. Anything not converted is deleted.
"""
xlate={0xc0:'A', 0xc1:'A', 0xc2:'A', 0xc3:'A', 0xc4:'A', 0xc5:'A',
0xc6:'Ae', 0xc7:'C',
0xc8:'E', 0xc9:'E', 0xca:'E', 0xcb:'E',
0xcc:'I', 0xcd:'I', 0xce:'I', 0xcf:'I',
0xd0:'Th', 0xd1:'N',
0xd2:'O', 0xd3:'O', 0xd4:'O', 0xd5:'O', 0xd6:'O', 0xd8:'O',
0xd9:'U', 0xda:'U', 0xdb:'U', 0xdc:'U',
0xdd:'Y', 0xde:'th', 0xdf:'ss',
0xe0:'a', 0xe1:'a', 0xe2:'a', 0xe3:'a', 0xe4:'a', 0xe5:'a',
0xe6:'ae', 0xe7:'c',
0xe8:'e', 0xe9:'e', 0xea:'e', 0xeb:'e',
0xec:'i', 0xed:'i', 0xee:'i', 0xef:'i',
0xf0:'th', 0xf1:'n',
0xf2:'o', 0xf3:'o', 0xf4:'o', 0xf5:'o', 0xf6:'o', 0xf8:'o',
0xf9:'u', 0xfa:'u', 0xfb:'u', 0xfc:'u',
0xfd:'y', 0xfe:'th', 0xff:'y',
0xa1:'!', 0xa2:'{cent}', 0xa3:'{pound}', 0xa4:'{currency}',
0xa5:'{yen}', 0xa6:'|', 0xa7:'{section}', 0xa8:'{umlaut}',
0xa9:'{C}', 0xaa:'{^a}', 0xab:'<<', 0xac:'{not}',
0xad:'-', 0xae:'{R}', 0xaf:'_', 0xb0:'{degrees}',
0xb1:'{+/-}', 0xb2:'{^2}', 0xb3:'{^3}', 0xb4:"'",
0xb5:'{micro}', 0xb6:'{paragraph}', 0xb7:'*', 0xb8:'{cedilla}',
0xb9:'{^1}', 0xba:'{^o}', 0xbb:'>>',
0xbc:'{1/4}', 0xbd:'{1/2}', 0xbe:'{3/4}', 0xbf:'?',
0xd7:'*', 0xf7:'/'
}
r = ''
for i in unicrap:
if xlate.has_key(ord(i)):
r += xlate[ord(i)]
elif ord(i) >= 0x80:
pass
else:
r += str(i)
return r
if __name__ == '__main__':
s = unicode('','latin-1')
for c in range(32,256):
if c != 0x7f:
s = s + unicode(chr(c),'latin-1')
plain_ascii = latin1_to_ascii(s)
print 'INPUT type:', type(s)
print 'INPUT:'
print s.encode('latin-1')
print
print 'OUTPUT type:', type(plain_ascii)
print 'OUTPUT:'
print plain_ascii
