PyQt4 Python2 Unicode

Question

hey guys i have been working on a calculator with python and PyQt4 on Ubuntu.

I have some buttons with Unicode characters (back arrow, root) , I used the cxfreeze command in the terminal to compile my project, it uses python 2 by default everything went fine , however when i run the program the text on the buttons isn't shown properly.

I tried adding # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- to my script but it didn't help.

Here's how it looks under python2 :

Under Python3 :

I would like to know if there's a way to make cx_freeze use python3 , OR show the special characters properly under python2.

Any help would be appreciated, Thank you.

Answer 1

long ago I made a program (PyQt4/PySide and python 2.7.x) with unicode characters and build with cx_Freeze and works.

I use for example:

u"\u25B2"

Answer 2

QString only accepts ASCII characters. I don't think it will work in Python v2 or v3. You may get a little more from QByteArray as it accepts Latin-1.

From the docs:

http://pyqt.sourceforge.net/Docs/PyQt4/gotchas.html

For Python v3 the following conversions are done by default.

• If Qt expects a char * (or a const version) then PyQt4 will accept a str or QString that contains only ASCII characters, a bytes, a QByteArray, or a Python object that implements the buffer protocol.
• If Qt expects a char (or a const version) then PyQt4 will accept the same types as for char * and also require that a single character is provided.
• If Qt expects a signed char * or an unsigned char * (or a const version) then PyQt4 will accept a bytes.
• If Qt expects a signed char or an unsigned char (or a const version) then PyQt4 will accept a bytes of length 1.
• If Qt expects a QString then PyQt4 will accept a str, a bytes that contains only ASCII characters, a QChar or a QByteArray.
• If Qt expects a QByteArray then PyQt4 will also accept a str that contains only Latin-1 characters, or a bytes.

For Python v2 the following conversions are done by default.

• If Qt expects a char *, signed char * or an unsigned char * (or a const version) then PyQt4 will accept a unicode or QString that contains only ASCII characters, a str, a QByteArray, or a Python object that implements the buffer protocol.
• If Qt expects a char, signed char or an unsigned char (or a const version) then PyQt4 will accept the same types as for char *, signed char * and unsigned char * and also require that a single character is provided.
• If Qt expects a QString then PyQt4 will accept a unicode, a str that contains only ASCII characters, a QChar or a QByteArray.
• If Qt expects a QByteArray then PyQt4 will accept a unicode that contains only Latin-1 characters, or a str.

Adding the encoding at the top of the file only helps the OS when reading the file not interpreting the code.