Python: Get Unicode Name, Code Point

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

Get the codepoint from a character

Get character's Unicode Code Point .

from unicodedata import *

# 🦋
# BUTTERFLY
# ID 129419
# HEXD 1F98B

# get codepoint of Unicode char in decimal
print(ord("🦋"))
# 129419

# hexadecimal
print(hex(ord("🦋")))
# 0x1f98b

Get the character from a codepoint

from unicodedata import *

# 🦋
# BUTTERFLY
# ID 129419
# HEXD 1F98B

# get the character from its codepoint in decimal
print(chr(129419))
# 🦋

# from hexadecimal
print(chr(0x1F98B))
# 🦋

Get the unicode name of a character

Find character's Unicode name.

from unicodedata import name

print(name("🦋"))
# BUTTERFLY

Get the character from a character's unicode name

from unicodedata import lookup

# get character as string, from char name

print(lookup("GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA"))
# α

print(lookup("BUTTERFLY"))
# 🦋

print(lookup("RIGHTWARDS ARROW"))
# →

print(lookup("CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-5929"))
# 天

Print a Range of Unicode Chars

Here's a example that prints a range of Unicode chars, with their ordinal in hexadecimal, and name.

Chars without a name are skipped. (some of such are undefined codepoints.)

from unicodedata import name

xx = []

for i in range(945, 969):
    xx.append(eval('u"\\u%04x"' % i))

for x in xx:
    if name(x, "-") != "-":
        print(x, "|", "%04x" % (ord(x)), "|", name(x, "-"))

# output
# α | 03b1 | GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA
# β | 03b2 | GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA
# γ | 03b3 | GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA
# δ | 03b4 | GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA
# ε | 03b5 | GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON
# ζ | 03b6 | GREEK SMALL LETTER ZETA
# η | 03b7 | GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA
# θ | 03b8 | GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA
# ι | 03b9 | GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
# κ | 03ba | GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA
# λ | 03bb | GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA
# μ | 03bc | GREEK SMALL LETTER MU
# ν | 03bd | GREEK SMALL LETTER NU
# ξ | 03be | GREEK SMALL LETTER XI
# ο | 03bf | GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON
# π | 03c0 | GREEK SMALL LETTER PI
# ρ | 03c1 | GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO
# ς | 03c2 | GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA
# σ | 03c3 | GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA
# τ | 03c4 | GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU
# υ | 03c5 | GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON
# φ | 03c6 | GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI
# χ | 03c7 | GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI
# ψ | 03c8 | GREEK SMALL LETTER PSI

Python, Unicode