Python "SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\xe2' in file"

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Chapters
00:00 Python &Quot;Syntaxerror: Non-Ascii Character '\Xe2' In File&Quot;
00:59 Accepted Answer Score 161
01:27 Answer 2 Score 331
01:41 Answer 3 Score 24
01:54 Answer 4 Score 32
02:10 Thank you

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Full question
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2163...

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Content licensed under CC BY-SA
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...

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Tags
#python

#avk47

ANSWER 1

Score 331

If you are just trying to use UTF-8 characters or don't care if they are in your code, add this line to the top of your .py file

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 161

You've got a stray byte floating around. You can find it by running

with open("x.py") as fp:
    for i, line in enumerate(fp):
        if "\xe2" in line:
            print i, repr(line)

where you should replace "x.py" by the name of your program. You'll see the line number and the offending line(s). For example, after inserting that byte arbitrarily, I got:

4 "\xe2        lb = conn.create_load_balancer('my_lb', ['us-east-1a', 'us-east-1b'],[(80, 8080, 'http'), (443, 8443, 'tcp')])\n"

ANSWER 3

Score 32

\xe2 is the '-' character, it appears in some copy and paste it uses a different equal looking '-' that causes encoding errors. Replace the '-'(from copy paste) with the correct '-' (from you keyboard button).

ANSWER 4

Score 24

Change the file character encoding,

put below line to top of your code always

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-