gistfile1.py

import Cheetah.Filters

class UnicodeHarder(Cheetah.Filters.Filter):
    def filter(self, val,
               encoding='utf8',
               str=str,
               **kw):
        """ Try our best to unicode our strings """
        if not val:
            return u''
        if isinstance(val, unicode):
            return val
        try:
            return val.decode('utf-8', 'strict')
        except UnicodeDecodeError:
            try:
                return val.decode('latin-1', 'strict')
            except UnicodeDecodeError:
                return val.decode('ascii', 'ignore')
        except AttributeError:
            return unicode(val)
        return val