python error while reading large files from a folder to copy to another file - python-3.x

Question

i'm trying to read files in folder and copy specific part of each file to a new file using the below python code.but getting error as below
import glob
file=glob.glob("C:/Users/prasanth/Desktop/project/prgms/rank_free1/*.txt")
fp=[]
for b in file:
fp.append(open(b,'r'))
s1=''
for f in fp:
d=f.read().split('\t')
rank=d[0]
appname=d[1]
appid=d[2]
s1=appid+'\n'
file=open('C:/Users/prasanth/Desktop/project/prgms/appids_file.txt','a',encoding="utf-8")
file.write(s1)
file.close()
im getting the following error message
enter code here
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "appids.py", line 8, in <module>
d=f.read().split('\t')
File "C:\Users\prasanth\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36-
32\lib\encodings\cp1252.py", line 23, in decode
return codecs.charmap_decode(input,self.errors,decoding_table)[0]
UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' codec can't decode byte 0x8f in position
12307: character maps to <undefined>

Answer 1

From what I can see one of the files you are opening contains non-UTF8 characters so it can't be read into a string variable without appropriate information about its encoding.
To handle this you need to open the file for reading in binary mode and take care of the problem in your script.
You may put d=f.read().split('\t') in a try: except: construct and reopen the file in binary mode in the except: branch. Then handle in your script the problem with non-UTF8 characters it contains.