IPython mac terminal strange characters after using os.urandom

Question

When using IPython, osx terminal and remoting into an ubuntu server. I noticed that if I try to encode and print the output of os.urandom(1) it will break the terminal and all input will start to look like this:

⎽⎽␤␌±┌▒␌␊@▒⎻⎻.⎻┌▒␌␊⎻┤┼␌␤.␌⎺└

All input and output from the terminal continues to be displayed in that way even after ipython has been closed.

To replicate you can try:

import os
for i in xrange(10000):  
    try:  
        print os.urandom(1).encode('utf-8')
    except:
        pass

I have no use using a piece of code that does something like that. I'm just wondering why it would break the terminal.

Answer 1

Certain character sequences will send the terminal into alternate character set modes and the like. Run reset to fix this.