"Non-ASCII Characters" Errors in Python Scripts

When working with text that contains non-ASCII characters in Python, errors like "SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ..." or "SyntaxError: Non-UTF-8 code ... " can arise. These errors typically occur when your code's encoding is not explicitly declared or does not support the characters used.

As illustrated in the provided code, using non-ASCII characters, such as the pound symbol ('£'), can trigger such errors in Python 2 (due to its default ASCII encoding) and Python 3 (when saved with Latin-1 encoding).

To resolve these issues, it's crucial to understand encoding and ensure your code properly handles non-ASCII characters. As suggested in the error message, refer to PEP-0263 for detailed guidance on encoding.

Specifically, the recommended solution is to use UTF-8 encoding, which supports a wide range of characters. You can specify UTF-8 encoding by adding the line # -- coding: utf-8 -- at the top of your .py file.

Alternatively, you can define specific encodings on a string-by-string basis within your code. However, for cases where you need to support non-ASCII characters throughout your file, using UTF-8 encoding is recommended.