[Qgis-user] Unicode Encounter Error when trying to join attributes using a text variable - how do I fix it?

[Megan Misovic]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to join an attribute table using a text column name. I am using
Quantum GIS 1.7.0 and the mmqgis plugin .  I keep getting this error:

An error has occured while executing Python code:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/rhs02/.qgis/python/plugins\mmqgis\mmqgis_dialogs.py", line
114, in run
    mmqgis_attribute_join(self.iface, layername, infilename, joinfield,
joinattribute, outfilename, notfoundname, addlayer)
  File "C:/Users/rhs02/.qgis/python/plugins\mmqgis\mmqgis_library.py", line
189, in mmqgis_attribute_join
    key = str(attributes[joinattribute_index].toString()).lower()
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xe1' in position
5: ordinal not in range(128)

Python version:
2.5.2 (r252:60911, Feb 21 2008, 13:11:45) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)]


QGIS version:
1.7.0-Wroclaw Wroclaw, 63ecdd7

Python path: ['C:/PROGRA~1/QUANTU~1/apps/qgis/./python',
'C:/Users/rhs02/.qgis/python', 'C:/Users/rhs02/.qgis/python/plugins',
'C:/PROGRA~1/QUANTU~1/apps/qgis/./python/plugins',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\bin\\python25.zip',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25\\DLLs',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25\\lib',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25\\lib\\plat-win',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25\\lib\\lib-tk',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\qgis\\bin',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages\\win32',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages\\win32\\lib',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages\\Pythonwin',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages\\wx-2.8-msw-unicode',
'C:\\PROGRA~1\\QUANTU~1\\apps\\qgis\\python\\plugins\\fTools\\tools',
'C:\\Users\\rhs02\\.qgis\\python\\plugins\\mmqgis/forms']

I tried reinstalling Quantum GIS and the plug in and I've made sure that the
path to my shapefile don't contain any non-alphabetic characters.  I assume
the path to my Quantum GIS program files also have no non-alphabetic
characters.  I tried creating a C:tmp file because it fixed another problem
with mmqgis - but to no avail.

Does anyone know what might be going wrong?  I've made sure that the
spelling of the text in the joining field is exactly the same - although
there are some single quotes, forward slashes and question marks in my
joining field. Is that what is causing this problem? I am using Windows
Vista, if that makes a difference.

If you can't help me with this error - does anyone know another way of
joining attributes using a text field in Quantum?

Thanks in advance for  any assistance,

Megan
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