Unicode temperatures

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dev.updateStateOnServer(key='sensorValue', value = baseValue, decimalPlaces=1, uiValue=str(baseValue) + u' °C')

dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=str(varValue) + u' °C')

dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=str(varValue) + u"\u00b0F")

The first line above is shamelessly plagiarised from @FlyingDiver's Masquerade plugin - and seemingly works.

The second line is my version - which throws the following error:

The third line is @CliveS's suggested fix - which also throws the following error:

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SyntaxError: ("(unicode error) 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xb0 in position 0: invalid start byte",
      ('plugin.py', 109, None, 'dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=str(varValue) + u" \xb0C")\n'))

What am I doing wrong? The ° character is typed in on Windows using Alt+0176 which inserts the unicode utf-8 symbol that you see.

I've played with ' and with " in the commands in case it makes a difference, but I definitely don't have Smart Quotes involved.

Peter

Hey Peter. Unicode is a pain.

Since moving everything over to the .format() specifier, I (knock on wood) haven't seen any Unicode errors. I do the following (including the shebang line):

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#!/usr/bin/env python2.7
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

u"{0}{1}".format('thing 1', 'thing 2')


In the rare circumstances where I've come across this error in the past, I've had to encode/decode the offending bit 'manually'. Try:

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dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=str(varValue) + u' °C'.decode('utf-8'))


I can't test your code; when I run it in a shell, it runs without error. I told you Unicode was a pain.

Hey Peter. Unicode is a pain.

Since moving everything over to the .format() specifier, I (knock on wood) haven't seen any Unicode errors.

Tell me about it!

Learning the .format() specifier is on the list with using the new log level debugging / plugin error logs introduced in about Indigo v4, followed by seeing what these PyBug thingies are all about.

Never used an attached debugger in my life, other than where it’s in the IDE such as Powershell and VB.Net (and other Visual Studio languages).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[jay (support)]

Here's my advice to anyone doing Python with Indigo:

1. Always use the format() method to format strings. It just handles pretty much any object for you automatically.
2. Always use u"stuff" (or u'stuff') on embedded strings. I'm not very good at this rule either, but seriously it'll save you a lot of headaches eventually.
3. Always try unicode() first before str(). Another one I'm not super consistent with, but in most cases unicode() is your best bet.

The problem with your original one was you were trying to use "+" on a str (non-unicode string) and a unicode. I think this version would have worked:

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dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=unicode(varValue) + u' °C')

Although I will point out that if varValue came directly from an Indigo variable then it's already unicode so casting it is unnecessary.

This is a nice explanation that I highly recommend.

Reason #712 to move to Python3 sooner than later...

I have been playing with this and found the following

I added these lines

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            elif (icon == 'TempC'):
#                dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=str(varValue) + degreeC + "1")
#                dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=str(varValue) + u'\u00b0C'+ "2")
                 dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=str(varValue) + u'°C' + "3")
#                dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=str(varValue) + u'°C' + "4")
                 dev.updateStateImageOnServer(indigo.kStateImageSel.TemperatureSensorOn)


and rem'ed out each line in turn and reloaded and got

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   Reloading plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2"
   Stopping plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2" (pid 15697)
   Variable Device                 Stop monitoring variable: Average_Outside_Temp
   Stopped plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2"
   Starting plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2" (pid 15830)
   Started plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2"
   Variable Device                 Monitoring variable: Average_Outside_Temp


except for the third line which is the original (4th line is Masquerade version which is fine)

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   Reloading plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2"
   Stopping plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2" (pid 15380)
   Variable Device                 Stop monitoring variable: Average_Outside_Temp
   Stopped plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2"
   Starting plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2" (pid 15441)
   Started plugin "Variable Device 1.0.2"
   Variable Device                 Monitoring variable: Average_Outside_Temp
   Variable Device Error           exception in deviceStartComm(new device 1): bad operand type for unary +: 'unicode'


Following Jay's suggestion I then changed line 3 to

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               dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=unicode(varValue) + u'°C' + "3")


and now just like the rest no errors!

[jay (support)]

Interestingly, this should be failing:

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dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=unicode(varValue) + u'°C' + "3")

Because you're trying to concatenate a unicode + unicode + str. I guess since "3" could easily be cast to unicode it works. I would highly recommend dumping string concatenation in favor of the format() method however.

Interestingly, this should be failing:

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dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=unicode(varValue) + u'°C' + "3")

Because you're trying to concatenate a unicode + unicode + str. I guess since "3" could easily be cast to unicode it works. I would highly recommend dumping string concatenation in favor of the format() method however.

The + "3" was added to see what line was active on reboot, but yes I can see what you mean.

As for going to .format I have started but the learning curve just gets steeper.

Finally settled on:

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dev.updateStateOnServer("displayState", str(varValue), uiValue=u'{} {}'.format(varValue, u"\u00b0C"))

If I tried °C even in the .format() bit, it still errored out.

Dave, it turns out I already have those shebang lines as my first plugin was cloned from the Indigo SDKs, then all my plugins since have been cloned from whichever of my plugins had the nearest style to what I was writing next, ie this one is cloned from ZWave Watcher as it's simply watching variables instead of devices.

Jay, when I get an exception in deviceStartComm about the ascii encoding bytes etc - why does this just report as a single line error, rather than a multi-line trace detailing which .py file, function and line no and character the error occurred on? I was forever going through putting debug lines in between every line to work out which point it was erroring.

Variable Device Debug Updating displayState: 20.5
Variable Device Error exception in deviceStartComm(PAH States): 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xb0 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)
Variable Device Debug Update received: MotionStudyPIROn: 2019-04-27 21:54:41

[jay (support)]

Something else that looks wonky to me is this:

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deviceStartComm(PAH States)

Not sure where PAH States is coming from...

Anyway, I just downloaded the 1.0.3 version of your plugin and changed these lines in the startup method:

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      self.uiValue["TempF"] = u" °F"
      self.uiValue["TempC"] = u" °C"


and it worked fine...

PAH States is the name of the device.

I’m thinking Windows vs Mac is upsetting the typing of the degree symbol (which I can’t type on iOS!) - if you and @FD type it in a .py file it works but if I type it on Windows it breaks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[jay (support)]

PAH States is the name of the device.

I’m thinking Windows vs Mac is upsetting the typing of the degree symbol (which I can’t type on iOS!) - if you and @FD type it in a .py file it works but if I type it on Windows it breaks.

That's what you get for running Windoze...

BTW, press and hold the zero key on an iOS keyboard and you'll get a popup with the option to insert the degree symbol. You're welcome!

9°°°°@&$);:/-\–—•…,¿¡’

Oooh!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Hey Peter. Unicode is a pain.

That's an understatement!

I'm working on a custom plugin that also uses temperatures and would like to use the degree symbol. The user might enter this in a textfield within the device configuration UI using <shift-option-8>. The problem I was having was when I print the valuesDict to the log file for debugging. Here's the original code:

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def validateDeviceConfigUi(self, valuesDict, typeId, devId):
      self.logger.debug(u"validateDeviceConfigUi()\n{}".format(str(valuesDict).encode('utf-8')))

I was getting the error

UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc2 in position 1935: ordinal not in range(128)

While creating this forum post, I tried a few more things and after reading Jay's post, this is what finally worked. It's so simple:

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def validateDeviceConfigUi(self, valuesDict, typeId, devId):
      self.logger.debug(u"validateDeviceConfigUi()\n{}".format(valuesDict))

And what's even better... An easy way to see properties and states of a dev is to print the dev from the command shell.

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>>> dev = indigo.devices[865221023]
>>> print dev


However, the same error can show up when printed this way. The easy way to fix it is:

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>>> dev = indigo.devices[865221023]
>>> print unicode(dev)


Spent way too much time figuring this one out so I thought I'd share.