The codecs module defines a set of base classes which define the
interface and can also be used to easily write you own codecs for use
in Python.
Each codec has to define four interfaces to make it usable as codec in
Python: stateless encoder, stateless decoder, stream reader and stream
writer. The stream reader and writers typically reuse the stateless
encoder/decoder to implement the file protocols.
The Codec class defines the interface for stateless
encoders/decoders.
To simplify and standardize error handling, the encode() and
decode() methods may implement different error handling
schemes by providing the errors string argument. The following
string values are defined and implemented by all standard Python
codecs:
Value
Meaning
'strict'
Raise UnicodeError (or a subclass);
this is the default.
'ignore'
Ignore the character and continue with the next.
'replace'
Replace with a suitable replacement character;
Python will use the official U+FFFD REPLACEMENT
CHARACTER for the built-in Unicode codecs on
decoding and '?' on encoding.
'xmlcharrefreplace'
Replace with the appropriate XML
character reference (only for encoding).
'backslashreplace'
Replace with backslashed escape sequences
(only for encoding).
The set of allowed values can be extended via register_error.
