chardetect.py

#!/usr/bin/env python2.7
"""Script which takes one or more file paths and reports on their detected
encodings

Example::

    % chardetect.py somefile someotherfile
    somefile: windows-1252 with confidence 0.5
    someotherfile: ascii with confidence 1.0

If no paths are provided, it takes its input from stdin.

"""
from sys import argv, stdin

from chardet.universaldetector import UniversalDetector


def description_of(file, name='stdin'):
    """Return a string describing the probable encoding of a file."""
    u = UniversalDetector()
    for line in file:
        u.feed(line)
    u.close()
    result = u.result
    if result['encoding']:
        return '%s: %s with confidence %s' % (name,
                                              result['encoding'],
                                              result['confidence'])
    else:
        return '%s: no result' % name


def main():
    if len(argv) <= 1:
        print description_of(stdin)
    else:
        for path in argv[1:]:
            print description_of(open(path, 'rb'), path)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()