title: python "-" dash showing as "\xe2\x80\x94" - how to correct
body: <p>I am reading in a file and I read in this line something like <code>for line in f:</code></p>
  
  <pre><code>Please Please Me,22 March 1963,Parlophone(UK),1,—,Gold,Platinum
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I then do a </p>
  
  <pre><code>b=line.split(",")
  print b
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and it gives me this:</p>
  
  <p><code>['Please Please Me', '22 March 1963', 'Parlophone(UK)', '1', '\xe2\x80\x94', 'Gold', 'Platinum\n']</code></p>
  
  <p>I want <code>—</code> and not <code>\xe2\x80\x94</code>. </p>
  
  <p>What exactly is happening here and how do I overcome it? </p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit1</strong> the problem is when iput it in an array it seems. python 2.7.5 on windows7</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ cat test.py
  # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
  
  
  b = "Please Please Me,22 March 1963,Parlophone(UK),1,—,Gold,Platinum"
  
  for i in b.split(','):
  
      print i.decode('utf-8')
  
  c = b.split(',')
  
  print c
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>output:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ python test.py
  Please Please Me
  22 March 1963
  Parlophone(UK)
  1
  —
  Gold
  Platinum
  ['Please Please Me', '22 March 1963', 'Parlophone(UK)', '1', '\xe2\x80\x94', 'Gold', 'Platinum']
  </code></pre>