UnicodeDecodeError seems still exist

[johnwei01]

When I run “import pylab”， it will report the UnicodeDecodeError. The matplotlib version is matplotlib-1.4.2.win32-py2.7.exe and my system is win7-x64.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
UnicodeDecodeError                        Traceback (most recent call last)
 in ()
----> 1 import pylab

C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pylab.py in ()
----> 1 from matplotlib.pylab import *
      2 import matplotlib.pylab
      3 __doc__ = matplotlib.pylab.__doc__

C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\pylab.py in ()
    229 # make mpl.finance module available for backwards compatability, in case folks
    230 # using pylab interface depended on not having to import it
--> 231 import matplotlib.finance
    232 
    233 from matplotlib.dates import date2num, num2date,\

C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\finance.py in ()
     36 from matplotlib.dates import date2num
     37 from matplotlib.cbook import iterable, mkdirs
---> 38 from matplotlib.collections import LineCollection, PolyCollection
     39 from matplotlib.colors import colorConverter
     40 from matplotlib.lines import Line2D, TICKLEFT, TICKRIGHT

C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\collections.py in ()
     25 import matplotlib.artist as artist
     26 from matplotlib.artist import allow_rasterization
---> 27 import matplotlib.backend_bases as backend_bases
     28 import matplotlib.path as mpath
     29 from matplotlib import _path

C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\backend_bases.py in ()
     54 
     55 import matplotlib.tight_bbox as tight_bbox
---> 56 import matplotlib.textpath as textpath
     57 from matplotlib.path import Path
     58 from matplotlib.cbook import mplDeprecation

C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\textpath.py in ()
     17 from matplotlib.path import Path
     18 from matplotlib import rcParams
---> 19 import matplotlib.font_manager as font_manager
     20 from matplotlib.ft2font import FT2Font, KERNING_DEFAULT, LOAD_NO_HINTING
     21 from matplotlib.ft2font import LOAD_TARGET_LIGHT

C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\font_manager.py in ()
    147     if home is not None:
    148         # user fonts on OSX
--> 149         path = os.path.join(home, 'Library', 'Fonts')
    150         OSXFontDirectories.append(path)
    151         path = os.path.join(home, '.fonts')

C:\Python27\lib\ntpath.pyc in join(path, *paths)
     82         if result_path and result_path[-1] not in '\\/':
     83             result_path = result_path + '\\'
---> 84         result_path = result_path + p_path
     85     ## add separator between UNC and non-absolute path
     86     if (result_path and result_path[0] not in '\\/' and

UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xa3 in position 2: ordinal not in range(128)

[johnwei01]

when I run "import matplotlib.pyplot as plt", the error still re reported.

UnicodeDecodeError                        Traceback (most recent call last)
 in ()
----> 1 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\pyplot.py in ()
     25 
     26 import matplotlib
---> 27 import matplotlib.colorbar
     28 from matplotlib import style
     29 from matplotlib import _pylab_helpers, interactive
C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\colorbar.py in ()
     32 import matplotlib.artist as martist
     33 import matplotlib.cbook as cbook
---> 34 import matplotlib.collections as collections
     35 import matplotlib.colors as colors
     36 import matplotlib.contour as contour
C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\collections.py in ()
     25 import matplotlib.artist as artist
     26 from matplotlib.artist import allow_rasterization
---> 27 import matplotlib.backend_bases as backend_bases
     28 import matplotlib.path as mpath
     29 from matplotlib import _path
C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\backend_bases.py in ()
     54 
     55 import matplotlib.tight_bbox as tight_bbox
---> 56 import matplotlib.textpath as textpath
     57 from matplotlib.path import Path
     58 from matplotlib.cbook import mplDeprecation
C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\textpath.py in ()
     17 from matplotlib.path import Path
     18 from matplotlib import rcParams
---> 19 import matplotlib.font_manager as font_manager
     20 from matplotlib.ft2font import FT2Font, KERNING_DEFAULT, LOAD_NO_HINTING
     21 from matplotlib.ft2font import LOAD_TARGET_LIGHT
C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\font_manager.py in ()
    147     if home is not None:
    148         # user fonts on OSX
--> 149         path = os.path.join(home, 'Library', 'Fonts')
    150         OSXFontDirectories.append(path)
    151         path = os.path.join(home, '.fonts')
C:\Python27\lib\ntpath.pyc in join(path, *paths)
     82         if result_path and result_path[-1] not in '\\/':
     83             result_path = result_path + '\\'
---> 84         result_path = result_path + p_path
     85     ## add separator between UNC and non-absolute path
     86     if (result_path and result_path[0] not in '\\/' and
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xa3 in position 2: ordinal not in range(128)

[johnwei01]

the matplotlib version is 1.4.2.

[tacaswell]

@johnwei01 I am confused, why is this closed if you are still getting the problem.

[johnwei01]

I don't know why this happen. I also try to modify the ntpath.py file, but it doesn't work.

[johnwei01]

@tacaswell Now I comment the lines 145-152 of the "font_manager.py" file, it can work well now.

[tacaswell]

What is the value of

home = os.environ.get('HOME')

Did this work on previous versions of mpl?

Do you have non-ascii characters in your user name?

[johnwei01]

The home value is .;％USERPROFILE％.
Sorry that I haven't used matplotlib before.
My user namename is as below:

[tacaswell]

It looks like the windows username is not getting expanded right.

I have very little experience with windows, @jbmohler @cgohlke can you take a look at this? Is the issue we are not expanding things or the configuration on the OP's system is not right?

@johnwei01 We are discouraging the use of from pylab import * in favor of

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

which does not pollute the namespace / silently clobber built in functions.

[jbmohler]

A fresh windows install does not have a HOME environment variable, so this is something local to the OP's system (it does look like a clever (?) attempt at redirection to the analog of HOME on windows). It seems like this block of code in font_manager.py is irrelevant to windows and os.environ's semantics of returning None for unknown environment variables does that more-or-less by accident.

My reading would be that this isn't really a bug, but it would make it explicitly correct to augment the conditional

if not USE_FONTCONFIG:

with a " and sys.platform != 'win32'".