Convert all files in a specified directory to utf-8. Warning: Make a backup of directory before run the script ;)

to_utf8.py

'''
sources:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/191359/how-to-convert-a-file-to-utf-8-in-python
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2212643/python-recursive-folder-read
'''

import os, sys, codecs

def convert(filepath):
    BLOCKSIZE = 1048576
    old_filepath = filepath+".old"
    os.rename(filepath, old_filepath)
    with codecs.open(old_filepath, "r", "iso-8859-1") as sourceFile:
        with codecs.open(filepath, "w", "utf-8") as targetFile:
            while True:
                contents = sourceFile.read(BLOCKSIZE)
                if not contents:
                    break
                targetFile.write(contents)
    os.remove(old_filepath)

def walk(walk_dir):
    walk_dir = os.path.abspath(walk_dir)
    for root, subdirs, files in os.walk(walk_dir):
        for filename in files:
            convert(os.path.join(root, filename))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    walk(sys.argv[1])