smartypants

library2.0.2pypypi✓ verified 94d ago

SmartyPants is a Python library that converts plain ASCII punctuation in text to "smart" typographic HTML entities. It transforms straight quotes to "curly" quotes, backticks-style quotes, -- and --- to en- and em-dashes, and three consecutive dots to an ellipsis entity. The current version is 2.0.2, and it is actively maintained with recent fixes for Python 3.12+ compatibility.

serialization

pip install smartypants

github ↗package ↗

INSTALL

IMPORT

SIG · SMARTYPANTS

smartypants

serializationpythonv2.0.2

Install

1.5s avg

Import

—

Disk

16MB

Pass rate

10/ 10

Env Coverage10 / 10

glibc

3.9–3.13

musl

3.9–3.13

Install & Compatibility

Where this runs

tested against v2.0.2 · pip install

no network on importno background threads

Install × environment matrix

Each cell = how many times install + import succeeded across repeated harness runs. Partial = flaky.
glibc = Debian/Ubuntu slim · musl = Alpine Linux

musl

py 3.10–3.920 runs

installs and imports cleanly · install 0.0s · import 0.000s · 17.8MB

glibc

py 3.10–3.920 runs

installs and imports cleanly · install 1.5s · import 0.000s · 18MB

16MB installed

● package 16MB

Code

Verified usage

Verified import paths — ran on the pinned version, not inferred.

smartypants

✓ import smartypants

Attr

✓ from smartypants import Attr

Demonstrates basic usage of the smartypants function to convert ASCII punctuation to typographic entities, and how to use attributes to control conversions.

import smartypants text = '"SmartyPants" is smart, so is <code>smartypants</code> -- a Python port...' processed_text = smartypants.smartypants(text) print(processed_text) # Example with attributes from smartypants import Attr attrs = Attr.q | Attr.d # Enable quotes and dashes processed_text_with_attrs = smartypants.smartypants(text, attrs) print(processed_text_with_attrs)

Debug

Known issues

breakingVersion 2.0.0 introduced significant breaking changes, including dropping Pyblosxom support, removing string-type attributes in favor of `Attr` enums, and deprecating old function names like `smartyPants`, `educateQuotes`, and `processEscapes`.

fix

Update your code to use `smartypants.Attr` for specifying processing options (e.g., `Attr.q | Attr.d`) instead of string arguments. Refer to the official documentation for the updated API.

affects: 2.0.0 and later

gotchaSmartyPants processes most plain text, but it deliberately skips certain HTML elements (e.g., `<pre>`, `<code>`, `<span>`, `<script>`, `<style>`) by default to prevent unintended conversion of code or other literal content.

fix

If smart punctuation appears unexpectedly in specific HTML tags, check if the tag is in the `tags_to_skip` list. You can modify `smartypants.tags_to_skip` or `smartypants._tags_to_skip_regex()` for advanced customization, but be aware of potential side effects.

affects: All

gotchaTo prevent 'smart' conversions for literal straight quotes, hyphens, or periods (e.g., '6\'2"' instead of '6\u20192\u201d'), use backslash escapes (`\`, `\-`, `\.`).

fix

Prepend a backslash before any punctuation character that you wish to remain as a literal ASCII character. For example, `text = "It's 6\'2\" tall."`.

affects: All

Errors

Common errors & fixes

NameError: name 'smartypants' is not defined

The `smartypants` module was not imported before use.

fix

Add `import smartypants` at the top of your Python file.

TypeError: smartypants() takes X positional arguments but Y were given (where X and Y are numbers, often 1 and 2)

You are likely attempting to pass a string or incorrect type as an attribute argument to `smartypants.smartypants()`, which was removed in version 2.0.0.

fix

Use the `Attr` enum for specifying processing options. For example, `from smartypants import Attr; smartypants.smartypants(text, attrs=Attr.q | Attr.d)`.

UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' codec can't decode byte X in position Y: character maps to <undefined>

This error can occur when processing text with unexpected encodings, particularly when running on systems with default encodings that don't match the input text (e.g., Python 3 with specific locales handling Unicode characters).

fix

Ensure your input text is consistently encoded, typically UTF-8. Explicitly decode input if reading from a file, for example, `text = open('input.txt', encoding='utf-8').read()`.

Upgrade

Version history

2.0.2latest on PyPI · released Jun 17, 2025

Audit

Dependencies

No dependency data recorded yet.

Agent activity

19 hits · last 30 days

node

Anthropic

Resources

githubhttps://github.com/justinmayer/smartypants.py ↗

packagehttps://pypi.org/project/smartypants/ ↗