encoding.py

tom-mba:~ tomb$ ipython
Python 2.7.5 (default, Nov 26 2013, 10:28:53)
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

IPython 2.0.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
?         -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
%quickref -> Quick reference.
help      -> Python's own help system.
object?   -> Details about 'object', use 'object??' for extra details.

In [1]: import sys; sys.stdin.encoding
Out[1]: 'US-ASCII'

In [2]: 'á'
Out[2]: '\xef\xbf\xbd'

In [3]:
Do you really want to exit ([y]/n)? y
tom-mba:~ tomb$ python
Python 2.7.5 (default, Nov 26 2013, 10:28:53)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 4.2 (clang-425.0.28)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 'á'
'\xe1'
>>>