psf/requests-html

When requesting a page that is ISO-8859-1 encoded, HTML is still interpreted as UTF-8

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#442 opened on Jan 27, 2021

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Description

When requesting a page that is ISO-8859-1 encoded:

>>> r = session.get('https://gerda.geus.dk/Gerda/Search')
>>> r.encoding
'ISO-8859-1'
>>> r.html.default_encoding
'ISO-8859-1'
>>> r.html.encoding
'utf8'
>>> r.html.find("option")[-1].text
'Bygge-anl�g'

Expected behavior:

>>> r.html.find("option")[-1].text
'Bygge-anlæg'

As far as I can see, there are two problems:

  • r.html.encoding is incorrectly set
  • r.html.element (The PyQuery instance) does not take encoding into account at all but just assumes utf-8

Contributor guide

Research direction
Examine the HTML class in requests html to see how encoding is determined and applied. Trace the default encoding and encoding attributes to understand why UTF 8 is forced.
Tech stack
python
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Mostly clear
Prerequisites
PythonHTTP basics
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
45