Iâ??m currently working on Japanese version of windows XP.

Yesterday, I tried to use pythonâ??s (ver 2.5.1.1) regular expression service to batch renam
e files in a directory, but the problem occurred: python failed to match file names.

 

Then I made some small scripts, and found that python canâ??t handle string very well (or ma
ybe this is intended?).

 

The test environment:

1. An empty directory is made.

2. A file named â??ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³.txtâ? is created under the directory.

3. Python scripts are placed and run under the directory.

4. All python scripts are written by Notepad. Because python cannot recognize Unicode text f
ile, so I test 2 file encodings: ANSI and UTF-8.

 

################ Script ############################################

# -*- encoding: shift_jis -*-

# script1.py (saved as ansi text file)

 

import os, re

 

def rename():

      pattern = 'ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³\.txt'     # ANSI

      print 'pattern: ', pattern

 

      myre = re.compile(pattern)

      for f in os.listdir('.'):

           m = myre.match(f)

           if m != None: print f, ': match!'

           else: print f, ': doesn\'t match!'

 

rename()

################# Output ###########################################

pattern:  ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³\.txt

ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³.txt : doesn't match!

 

################ Script ############################################

# -*- encoding: shift_jis -*-

# script2.py (saved as ansi text file)

 

import os, re

 

def rename():

      pattern = u'ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³\.txt'    # Unicode

      print 'pattern: ', pattern

 

      myre = re.compile(pattern)

      for f in os.listdir('.'):

           m = myre.match(f)

           if m != None: print f, ': match!'

           else: print f, ': doesn\'t match!'

 

rename()

################# Output ###########################################

pattern:  ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³\.txt

ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³.txt : doesn't match!

 

################ Script ############################################

# script3.py (saved as UTF-8 text file)

 

import os, re

 

def rename():

      pattern = 'ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³\.txt'     # ANSI

      print 'pattern: ', pattern

 

      myre = re.compile(pattern)

      for f in os.listdir('.'):

           m = myre.match(f)

           if m != None: print f, ': match!'

           else: print f, ': doesn\'t match!'

 

rename()

################# Output ###########################################

pattern:  繝代�繧ｽ繝ｳ\.txt

ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³.txt : doesn't match!

(pattern is shown as unrecognizable characters)

 

################ Script ############################################

# script4.py (saved as UTF-8 text file)

 

import os, re

 

def rename():

      pattern = u'ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³\.txt'    # Unicode

      print 'pattern: ', pattern

 

      myre = re.compile(pattern)

      for f in os.listdir('.'):

           m = myre.match(f)

           if m != None: print f, ': match!'

           else: print f, ': doesn\'t match!'

 

rename()

################# Output ###########################################

pattern:  ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³\.txt

ã??ã?¤ã?½ã?³.txt : doesn't match!