title: KeyError Pandas Dataframe (encoding index)
body: <p>I'm running the code below. It creates a couple of dataframes that takes a column in another dataframe that has a list of Conference Names, as its index.</p>
  
  <pre><code>    df_conf = pd.read_sql("select distinct Conference from publications where year&gt;=1991 and length(conference)&gt;1 order by conference", db)
  
      for index, row in df_conf.iterrows():
              row[0]=row[0].encode("utf-8")
  
      df2= pd.DataFrame(index=df_conf['Conference'], columns=['Citation1991','Citation1992'])
  
      df2 = df2.fillna(0)
      df_if= pd.DataFrame(index=df_conf['Conference'], columns=['IF1994','IF1995'])
  
      df_if = df_if.fillna(0)
  
      df_pubs=pd.read_sql("select Conference, Year, count(*) as totalPubs from publications where year&gt;=1991 group by conference, year", db)
  
      for index, row in df_pubs.iterrows():
          row[0]=row[0].encode("utf-8")
  
      df_pubs= df_pubs.pivot(index='Conference', columns='Year', values='totalPubs')
      df_pubs.fillna(0)
  
      for index, row in df2.iterrows():
          df_if.ix[index,'IF1994'] = df2.ix[index,'Citation1992'] / (df_pubs.ix[index,1992]+df_pubs.ix[index,1993])
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The last line keeps giving me the following error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>KeyError: 'Analyse dynamischer Systeme in Medizin, Biologie und \xc3\x96kologie'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Not quite sure what I'm doing wrong. I tried encoding the indexes. It won't work. I even tried <code>.at</code> still wont' work.</p>
  
  <p>I know it has to do with encoding, as it always stops at indexes with non-ascii characters.</p>
  
  <p>I'm using python 2.7</p>