pd.read_excel throws UnicodeDecodeError

Question

I am trying to read data from excel to pandas. The file I get comes from api and is not saved (the access to the file needs special permissions, so I don't want to save it). When I try to read excel from file

with open('path_to_file') as file:
    re = pd.read_excel(file)

I get the error

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x98 in position
10: invalid start byte

When I input path in palce of file everythng works fine

re = pd.read_excel('path-to-exactly-the-same-file')

Is there a way to read excel by pandas without saving it and inputting path?

Try to read the file as bytes: with open('path_to_file', 'rb') as file — foglerit
– foglerit, Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 11:47

alis01 · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-07 11:54:24Z

2

the part that was missing was 'rb' in open

with open('path_to_file', 'rb') as file:
    re = pd.read_excel(file)

to treat the file as binary. Idea taken from error UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte

answered Oct 7, 2020 at 11:54

alis01

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