""" win32_unicode_argv.py Importing this will replace sys.argv with a full Unicode form. Windows only. From this site, with adaptations: http://code.activestate.com/recipes/572200/ Usage: simply import this module into a script. sys.argv is changed to be a list of Unicode strings. """ import sys def win32_unicode_argv(): """Uses shell32.GetCommandLineArgvW to get sys.argv as a list of Unicode strings. Versions 2.x of Python don't support Unicode in sys.argv on Windows, with the underlying Windows API instead replacing multi-byte characters with '?'. """ from ctypes import POINTER, byref, cdll, c_int, windll from ctypes.wintypes import LPCWSTR, LPWSTR GetCommandLineW = cdll.kernel32.GetCommandLineW GetCommandLineW.argtypes = [] GetCommandLineW.restype = LPCWSTR CommandLineToArgvW = windll.shell32.CommandLineToArgvW CommandLineToArgvW.argtypes = [LPCWSTR, POINTER(c_int)] CommandLineToArgvW.restype = POINTER(LPWSTR) cmd = GetCommandLineW() argc = c_int(0) argv = CommandLineToArgvW(cmd, byref(argc)) if argc.value > 0: # Remove Python executable and commands if present start = argc.value - len(sys.argv) return [argv[i] for i in xrange(start, argc.value)] sys.argv = win32_unicode_argv()