How to filter out common unwanted characters in Python

gistfile1.py

character_replacements = [
    ( u'\u2018', u"'"),   # LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK
    ( u'\u2019', u"'"),   # RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK
    ( u'\u201c', u'"'),   # LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK
    ( u'\u201d', u'"'),   # RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK
    ( u'\u201e', u'"'),   # DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK
    ( u'\u2013', u'-'),   # EN DASH
    ( u'\u2026', u'...'), # HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS
    ( u'\u0152', u'OE'),  # LATIN CAPITAL LIGATURE OE
    ( u'\u0153', u'oe')   # LATIN SMALL LIGATURE OE
]

    for (undesired_character, safe_character) in character_replacements:
        text = text.replace(undesired_character, safe_character)

I know 'unwanted characters' can be controversial and the use case may be unclear. But this code was useful to me, in game development and when working with relatively primitive font systems.

See also my blog post: http://www.intelligent-artifice.com/2010/02/how-to-filter-out-common-unwanted-characters-in-python.html