iterative-codecs

import codecs 
 
def _iter_encode(iterable, func): 
    for item in iterable: 
        encoded_item = func(item) 
        if encoded_item: 
            yield encoded_item 
    encoded_item = func('', True) 
    if encoded_item: 
        yield encoded_item 
 
def iter_encode(iterable, codec, errors='strict'): 
    cls = codecs.getincrementalencoder(codec) 
    return _iter_encode(iterable, cls(errors).encode) 
 
def iter_decode(iterable, codec, errors='strict'): 
    cls = codecs.getincrementaldecoder(codec) 
    return _iter_encode(iterable, cls(errors).decode) 

Samples:

>>>u'Foo \N{SNOWMAN}'.encode('utf-8') 
'Foo \xe2\x98\x83'
>>>list(iter_decode(_, 'utf-­‐8'))
[u'F', u'o', u'o', u'', u'\u2603']