{"action":"created","issue":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/python-excel/xlrd/issues/178","repository_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/python-excel/xlrd","labels_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/python-excel/xlrd/issues/178/labels{/name}","comments_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/python-excel/xlrd/issues/178/comments","events_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/python-excel/xlrd/issues/178/events","html_url":"https://github.com/python-excel/xlrd/issues/178","id":166111192,"number":178,"title":"doc is misusing the term \"unicode\"","user":{"login":"deronnax","id":439279,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/439279?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax","html_url":"https://github.com/deronnax","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/deronnax/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"labels":[],"state":"open","locked":false,"assignee":null,"assignees":[],"milestone":null,"comments":9,"created_at":"2016-07-18T14:45:45Z","updated_at":"2016-11-01T00:12:04Z","closed_at":null,"body":"In [docs/unicode.rst](https://github.com/python-excel/xlrd/blob/master/docs/unicode.rst)\r\n\r\n> From Excel 97 onwards, text in Excel spreadsheets has been stored as Unicode\r\n\r\nYou can't really say this. You're confusing character set and character encoding. Unicode is a character set which can be encoded using several character encoding : UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32, and somehow UCS-2 and UCS-4. If I tell you \"this file is in Unicode\", you won't be able to open and read it, because Unicode is not an actual text encoding. You will have to use one the U-something I told you above. This page need to be somehow reworded. I quickly googled what is the actual encoding of excel files but didn't found.\r\n\r\nMicrosoft [improperly used the \"term\" Unicode in its API for years](http://stackoverflow.com/a/3299860), hence why everybody is mistaking. Anyway, it makes no real sense and need to be fixed :).\r\n\r\nHope I made myself clear. Ask me if something is unclear.\r\n"},"comment":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/python-excel/xlrd/issues/comments/257457486","html_url":"https://github.com/python-excel/xlrd/issues/178#issuecomment-257457486","issue_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/python-excel/xlrd/issues/178","id":257457486,"user":{"login":"sjmachin","id":1508240,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1508240?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin","html_url":"https://github.com/sjmachin","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/sjmachin/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"created_at":"2016-11-01T00:12:04Z","updated_at":"2016-11-01T00:12:04Z","body":"If all you want to know is what range(s) of Unicode characters is/are supported in XLS files (i.e. before Excel 2007), you have the answer.\r\nNote that decoding/encoding is done at a string level, not at a file level.\r\nFor detail on how the encoding/decoding works, see xlwt/UnicodeUtils."}}
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