u"""helper to ensure that text passed to WriteConsoleW is unicode

def ensure_unicode(text):
    u"""helper to ensure that text passed to WriteConsoleW is unicode"""
    if isinstance(text, str):
        try:
            return text.decode(pyreadline_codepage, u"replace")
        except (LookupError, TypeError):
            return text.decode(u"ascii", u"replace")
    return text