UnicodeEncodeError in python3 program

Question

the program is suppose to write all files on the hard drive to a file. when i run it in idle it runs until it hits a specific file and then gives me an error: UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character '\™' in position 143: character maps to < undefined >

#! python3

import os

nfile=open('c:\\users\\computer 6\\desktop\\HardDrive.txt','w')

for folder,subfolder,files in os.walk('c:\\'):
 if len(files) != 0:
  for i in range(len(files)):
   nfile.write(os.path.join(folder,files[i])+'\n')
 else:
  continue

nfile.close()

print('Log complete.')

i'm guessing this is because the file contains a Spanish letter?

Answer 1

Specify an encoding that supports all Unicode characters. open defaults to locale.getpreferredencoding() . \™ is a trademark symbol and is not supported by your default encoding:

#! python3
import os

with open('c:\\users\\computer 6\\desktop\\HardDrive.txt','w',encoding='utf8') as nfile:
    for folder,subfolders,files in os.walk('c:\\'):
        for file in files:
            nfile.write(os.path.join(folder,file) + '\n')

print('Log complete.')

Answer 2

EDIT: I see I've missed some points in the question and this answer isn't right indeed. So please forget the following (I don't delete it only in a "historical" purpose).

You're most probably right. Had the same problem with french characters, solved this way:

    for f in next(os.walk(full_path))[2]:
        ##
        #   @todo The following line is a hack to avoid encoding errors,
        #         it would be better to find a way to avoid doing this
        #         encoding/decoding on each file.

        f = f.encode('utf-8', 'replace').decode()

        file_name, extension = os.path.splitext(f)

        etc.