title: Python: testing for utf-8 character in string
body: <p>I need to test whether a string that has already been encoded with str.encode('utf-8') is right-to-left. I tried </p>
  
  <pre><code>if u'\u200f' in str.decode('utf-8'):
    print 'found it'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It neither complains nor works. </p>
  
  <p>Q: What is the correct syntax to test for the occurrence of a single non-ASCII character in a string? Python 2.6 and I can't use 3.</p>
  
  <p>Q: I remember reading that predominantly right-to-left characters default to RTL even without an explicit RML. Does anyone know a way to test such a string without knowing which language to expect (i.e. the string can be in Arabic, Hebrew or any other RTL language)? </p>
  
  <p>Thanks for all help.</p>