`UnicodeEncodeError` error on reading `IfcGloballyUniqueID` on Ubuntu

[amrit3701]

When we read IfcGloballyUniqueId from IFC file on Ubuntu, it gives UnicodeEncodeError but on MacOSx ifcopenshell successfully parse IfcGloballyUniqueID (i.e. 2oAZ$Cu_aHwBkVc2Blr0Hl).

Please refer to this. https://gist.github.com/amrit3701/ebdf91fa3db5e71e7a334ef38e4dcefa

Here I created a proof of concept that how I successfully read GlobalId on MacOS but on Ubuntu its gives UnicodeEncodeError.

Also, I tried to search it about this error, but not sure is it related to IfcOpenShell (maybe some C++ library) or Ubuntu OS?

[Moult]

Haven't had time to test this, but can you check with the system python? Not ipython.

[aothms]

Thanks for the detailed report.

My guess is that this is due to the internal unicode representation setting in Python. This is unfortunately a compile time setting, but you can check it at runtime using sys.maxunicode. For wide (that can represent the full UCS-4) this is '0x10ffff', on builds with a narrow representation (UCS-2) this is a lower number. Whether a distribution ships narrow or wide Python builds seems pretty arbitrary.

This is the reason there are builds for Python 27 and Python 27u for the newer builds of IfcOpenShell [1]. Somewhat embarrassingly I forgot whether the u signifies narrow or wide unicode. Since Python 3.3 there is "universal unicode", which eliminates this setting.

My advice, either switch to a more recent Python version or try the 27 and 27u builds below. Let me know whether this resolves your issue.

[1] IfcOpenBot@bf16239#commitcomment-32346507

[hsrai]

Python 27u i.e https://s3.amazonaws.com/ifcopenshell-builds/ifcopenshell-python-27u-master-bf16239-linux64.zip worked fine. Thank you for the solution.

[amrit3701]

@Moult Yeah! It works on my side also. Thanks for your answer.