Error when creating an instance of Gazetteer

[jamesabrook]

Using the provided example code (below) I get an error when it tries to create an instance of Gazetteer.

Code:

from gazetteer import Gazetteer  # import the library

gz = Gazetteer()  # gazetteer instance
coordinates = [
    (-74.0060, 40.7128),
    (76.2673, 9.9312),
]  # list of tuples, in order longitude,latitude
for data in gz.search(coordinates):  # gz.search() returns a generator
    print(data)  # GeocoderResultBaseModel

Error:

Exception has occurred: UnicodeDecodeError
'charmap' codec can't decode byte 0x90 in position 1475: character maps to

Traceback:

File "d:\Projects\geoguessr\src_exploration\test_gazetteer.py", line 3, in
gz = Gazetteer() # gazetteer instance
File "C:\Users\james\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python314\Lib\site-packages\gazetteer\reverse_geocode.py", line 65, in getinstance
instances[cls] = cls(**kwargs)
~~~^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\Users\james\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python314\Lib\site-packages\gazetteer\reverse_geocode.py", line 85, in init
coordinates, self.locations = self._load()
~~~~~~~~~~^^
File "C:\Users\james\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python314\Lib\site-packages\gazetteer\reverse_geocode.py", line 103, in _load
header = stream_reader.fieldnames
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\Users\james\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python314\Lib\csv.py", line 163, in fieldnames
self._fieldnames = next(self.reader)
~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "C:\Users\james\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python314\Lib\encodings\cp1252.py", line 23, in decode
return codecs.charmap_decode(input,self.errors,decoding_table)[0]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' codec can't decode byte 0x90 in position 1475: character maps to

I've just installed a fresh copy of python 3.14.2 and Gazetteer using pip install python-gazetteer as per the readme. I'm running on Windows 11 using VSCode.

[RiemannZetar]

@jamesabrook

I believe it's due to Gazetter using the default windows csv encoding CP1252 instead of UTF-8.

Try force UTF-8 mode through the PYTHONUTF environment variable in your terminal like so:

$env:PYTHONUTF8="1"

Then run your python script as usual, worked for me.

[jamesabrook]

Hi @RiemannZetar - only just seeing this reply but thanks for the idea. I will give that a go this evening and hopefully update this to let you know that it worked!

[jamesabrook]

@RiemannZetar yep, that looks to have worked!

I'm using VSCode so I've created a specific configuration for debugging (and also generally running) with this environment set as follows:

{
  // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes.
  // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.
  // For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Python Debugger: Current File (with gazetteer env)",
      "type": "debugpy",
      "request": "launch",
      "program": "${file}",
      "console": "integratedTerminal",
      "env": {
        "PYTHONUTF8": "1"
      }
    }
  ]
}