scissor-character yields encoding-error on Windows

[celmi]

I'm quite new at programming, maybe asking stupid questions. I've been trying to run the example codes for a pdf-output but I'm running into this error message: File "C:\Users\MCH\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\encodings\cp1252.py", line 19, in encode return codecs.charmap_encode(input,self.errors,encoding_table)[0] UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character '\u2702' in position 2754: character maps to <undefined> I suppose it's not an issue of your code, but some problem of mine own, on Windows. From what I understand it. How can I tackle it best? I didn't get anywhere with stack-exchange & co. I appreciate any help.

[claudep]

Thanks for the report. I cannot directly test because I don't own any Windows machine, but if you could provide a full traceback, it would help to see where this is happening.

[celmi]

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\MCH\qrbill\main.py", line 18, in <module>
    my_bill.as_svg(temp)
  File "C:\Users\MCH\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\qrbill\bill.py", line 449, in as_svg
    dwg.write(file_out)
  File "C:\Users\MCH\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\svgwrite\drawing.py", line 112, in write
    fileobj.write(xml_string)
  File "C:\Users\MCH\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\tempfile.py", line 481, in func_wrapper
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\MCH\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\encodings\cp1252.py", line 19, in encode
    return codecs.charmap_encode(input,self.errors,encoding_table)[0]
UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character '\u2702' in position 2754: character maps to <undefined>

Thanks!

[claudep]

Thanks, now I suppose it's related to how temp is defined in your script. Can you show it as well?

[celmi]

Sure. I basically copied your sample code from github into an empty file and tried to run it (without actually knowing what excatly it means... 😳)

` import tempfile from qrbill.bill import QRBill from svglib.svglib import svg2rlg from reportlab.graphics import renderPDF

if name == 'main': my_bill = QRBill( account='CH5800791123000889012', creditor={ 'name': 'Jane', 'pcode': '1000', 'city': 'Lausanne', 'country': 'CH', }, amount='22.45', ) with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(mode='w') as temp: my_bill.as_svg(temp) temp.seek(0) drawing = svg2rlg(temp.name) renderPDF.drawToFile(drawing, "file.pdf") `

[claudep]

Ah, I see! Could you please test with: with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(mode='w', encoding='utf-8') as temp:?

If it works I'll update the README accordingly.

[celmi]

Earlier on I'd already been trying this too, because I'd seen something similar being recommended to someone on stackxchange. But it throws another, different error :

Failed to load input file! (Error reading file 'C:\Users\MCH\AppData\Local\Temp\tmphjq_tiew': failed to load external entity "C:\Users\MCH\AppData\Local\Temp\tmphjq_tiew")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\MCH\qrbill\main.py", line 21, in <module>
    renderPDF.drawToFile(drawing, "file.pdf")
  File "C:\Users\MCH\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\reportlab\graphics\renderPDF.py", line 290, in drawToFile
    d = renderScaledDrawing(d)
  File "C:\Users\MCH\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\reportlab\graphics\renderbase.py", line 172, in renderScaledDrawing
    renderScale = d.renderScale
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'renderScale'

[claudep]

Ah, this is already some progress!

Now my suspicion is that the rendering fails because the temporary file cannot be open a second time on Windows (as explained in https://docs.python.org/3/library/tempfile.html#tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile.)

So instead of using a temporary file, you should use a real file, close it and produce the PDF. Something along these lines:

with open('file.svg', encoding='utf-8', mode='w') as temp:
    my_bill.as_svg(temp)
drawing = svg2rlg('file.svg')
renderPDF.drawToFile(drawing, "file.pdf")

You may want to delete 'file.svg' afterwards.

[claudep]

I have another variant I'd like you to test on Windows (which does not require an intermediate real file):

with tempfile.TemporaryFile(encoding='utf-8', mode='r+') as temp:
    my_bill.as_svg(temp)
    temp.seek(0)
    drawing = svg2rlg(temp)
renderPDF.drawToFile(drawing, "file.pdf")

[celmi]

I've testet the second variant, and it worked just great, thank you so much! 💐 If you would like me to test the first variant too, or help you with other bugs on windows, please let me know. Thank you very much for the kind support.

[claudep]

Thanks for testing. The second version is better anyway. I updated the README sample.

As a final note, I can only encourage you to discover some Linux platform :-)

[celmi]

:-) well, if I was working alone I would have switched the platform a long time ago. But I am responsible not only for myself, but also for my co-workers and so I must better stick with what we've got and not change too many things at once...

[claudep]

I can understand that, it's wise!