Error outputting unicode text in python 3 to console using Python Tools from MS Visual Studio

Question

I want to print unicode text to console window without messing with its encoding. I want to replace the characters that could not be printed.

My environment:

• MS Windows 10
• MS Visual Studio 2015
• Python Tools for Visual Studio 2.2.3
• Python 3.4

The problem is when starting the script from MSVS using Python Tools:

• sys.stdout.encoding indicates that the encoding is utf8
• but print('\u2013') will trigger error 'charmap' codec can't encode character '\u2013' in position 0: character maps to <undefined>

When I start the script from cmd.exe, sys.stdout.encoding indicates correct encoding cp852, in this case the error is expected.

I basically want to do this:

def safePrint(text):
    e = sys.stdout.encoding
    print(text.encode(e, 'replace').decode(e))

so that the characters not supported are replaced, eg.:

safePrint(u'a \u2013 b')

• shall output a ? b for cp852
• and a – b for utf-8

How can I find what encoding is print implementation really using?