chardet ☆

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Description:
Python character encoding detector

Type: Formula | Latest Version: 5.2.0@0 | Tracked Since: Dec 17, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Developer tools

Tags: encoding detection python text-processing charset

Install: brew install chardet

About:
Chardet is a Python library that accurately detects the character encoding of text data. It analyzes byte patterns and statistical distributions to identify the most likely encoding, supporting a wide range of international character sets. This is essential for correctly processing and interpreting text from unknown or mixed sources.

Key Features:

Supports over 40 languages and encodings
Highly accurate detection using statistical analysis
Low-level C implementation for performance
Simple Python API for easy integration

Use Cases:

Automatically detecting encoding of web pages or user-submitted files
Building robust data ingestion pipelines for text processing
Fixing garbled text in legacy applications or databases

Alternatives:

cchardet – A faster C-based implementation, but with fewer supported encodings and less active maintenance.
charset-normalizer – A popular alternative focused on decoding text rather than just detection, often preferred for HTTP requests.

License: LGPL-2.1-or-later

Dependencies: python@3.14

Bottles available for: all

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Oct 11, 2025 1:06am		0	VERSION_BUMP	8dd0c25a
Oct 10, 2024 8:40am		0	VERSION_BUMP	47eeace2