Read file with tab separated search and replace entries (one per line) and apply them to a target file and output to std-out.

search-replace.py

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf_8 -*-
#

import sys
import re
import os
import codecs

targetfile = sys.argv[1]
replacements = sys.argv[2]

# read escaped chars into dictionary, escape sequence is key
charDic = {}
replaceFile = codecs.open(replacements, 'r', encoding='utf8')
for line in replaceFile:
	lineList = line.strip().split('\t')
	charDic[lineList[0]] = lineList[1]
replaceFile.close()

for line in codecs.open(targetfile, 'r', encoding='utf8'):
	# replace escaped chars with our stuff
	for key in charDic.keys():
		line = line.replace(key, charDic[key])
	sys.stdout.write(line.encode('utf8'))