python unicode helpers

python unicode helpers

def smart_unicode(s, encoding='utf-8', errors='strict'):
	if type(s) in (unicode, int, long, float, types.NoneType):
		return unicode(s)
	elif type(s) is str or hasattr(s, '__unicode__'):
		return unicode(s, encoding, errors)
	else:
		return unicode(str(s), encoding, errors)

def smart_str(s, encoding='utf-8', errors='strict', from_encoding='utf-8'):
	if type(s) in (int, long, float, types.NoneType):
		return str(s)
	elif type(s) is str:
		if encoding != from_encoding:
			return s.decode(from_encoding, errors).encode(encoding, errors)
		else:
			return s
	elif type(s) is unicode:
		return s.encode(encoding, errors)
	elif hasattr(s, '__str__'):
		return smart_str(str(s), encoding, errors, from_encoding)
	elif hasattr(s, '__unicode__'):
		return smart_str(unicode(s), encoding, errors, from_encoding)
	else:
		return smart_str(str(s), encoding, errors, from_encoding)

def to_unicode(value):
	if isinstance(value, unicode):
		return value
	elif isinstance(value, str):
		try:
			if value.startswith('\xff\xfe'):
				return value.decode('utf-16-le')
			elif value.startswith('\xfe\xff'):
				return value.decode('utf-16-be')
			else:
				return value.decode('utf-8')
		except UnicodeDecodeError:
			return value.decode('latin-1')
	else:
		try:
			return unicode(value)
		except UnicodeError:
			return to_unicode(str(value))
		except TypeError:
			if hasattr(value, '__unicode__'):
				return value.__unicode__()