How to Detect the Encoding of a Text File in Python

Whether you’re troubleshooting a text file or just checking if it’s compatible with certain programs, identifying that file’s encoding should be a quick & easy operation. Thankfully, the below solution makes it simple to detect the encoding of any text file, returning a string identifying the specific encoding format used. To take advantage of this API for free, just copy and paste from the code examples provided below, and then get a free-tier API key from our website to complete your API call.

First things first, we can install the Python SDK using the following command:

pip install cloudmersive-convert-api-client

Next, we can finish up by including the imports above our function:

from __future__ import print_function
import time
import cloudmersive_convert_api_client
from cloudmersive_convert_api_client.rest import ApiException
from pprint import pprint

# Configure API key authorization: Apikey
configuration = cloudmersive_convert_api_client.Configuration()
configuration.api_key['Apikey'] = 'YOUR_API_KEY'



# create an instance of the API class
api_instance = cloudmersive_convert_api_client.EditTextApi(cloudmersive_convert_api_client.ApiClient(configuration))
input_file = '/path/to/inputfile' # file | Input file to perform the operation on.

try:
    # Detect text encoding of file
    api_response = api_instance.edit_text_text_encoding_detect(input_file)
    pprint(api_response)
except ApiException as e:
    print("Exception when calling EditTextApi->edit_text_text_encoding_detect: %s\n" % e)

That’s all there is to it — no more code required. Your free-tier API key will allow you to make up to 800 API calls per month with no additional commitments (reaching your limit will cause the total to reset for the following month).