Don't add a UTF-8 header - this is the default encoding

docs/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -10,12 +10,11 @@ Jupytext ChangeLog
 
 **Added**
 - Added Haskell as supported language ([#909](https://github.com/mwouts/jupytext/issues/909)) - thanks to [codeweber](https://github.com/codeweber) for this contribution
-- We added an example that document how one needs to reload the notebook to update the metadata (e.g. the encoding) when the text version has changed (#907)
 
 **Changed**
 - We have updated the pre-commit hooks and in particular we switched to the first stable version of `black==22.1.0`.
 - We require `pandoc==2.16.2` for testing. The representation for code cells changed from ` ``` {.python}` to ` ``` python` in that version of Pandoc ([#906](https://github.com/mwouts/jupytext/issues/906)). We don't use `pandoc>=2.17` in tests at the moment because of the introduction of cell ids that cannot be filtered.
-
+- Jupytext will not add anymore a UTF-8 encoding on Python scripts when the notebook contains non-ascii characters ([#907](https://github.com/mwouts/jupytext/issues/907))
 
 1.13.6 (2022-01-11)
 -------------------

jupytext/header.py

@@ -8,7 +8,11 @@
 from nbformat.v4.nbbase import new_raw_cell
 from yaml.representer import SafeRepresenter
 
-from .languages import _SCRIPT_EXTENSIONS, comment_lines
+from .languages import (
+    _SCRIPT_EXTENSIONS,
+    comment_lines,
+    default_language_from_metadata_and_ext,
+)
 from .metadata_filter import _DEFAULT_NOTEBOOK_METADATA, filter_metadata
 from .pep8 import pep8_lines_between_cells
 from .version import __version__
@@ -58,7 +62,7 @@ def encoding_and_executable(notebook, metadata, ext):
     if comment is not None:
         if "encoding" in jupytext_metadata:
             lines.append(jupytext_metadata.pop("encoding"))
-        else:
+        elif default_language_from_metadata_and_ext(metadata, ext) != "python":
             for cell in notebook.cells:
                 try:
                     cell.source.encode("ascii")

tests/test_unicode.py

@@ -22,16 +22,47 @@ def test_write_non_ascii(tmpdir):
     jupytext.write(nb, str(tmpdir.join("notebook.ipynb")))
 
 
+def test_no_encoding_in_python_scripts(no_jupytext_version_number):
+    """No UTF encoding should not be added to Python scripts"""
+    nb = new_notebook(
+        cells=[new_markdown_cell("α")],
+        metadata={
+            "kernelspec": {
+                "display_name": "Python 3",
+                "language": "python",
+                "name": "python3",
+            },
+        },
+    )
+
+    # Saving to and reading from py creates an encoding
+    py_light = jupytext.writes(nb, "py:light")
+    compare(
+        py_light,
+        """# ---
+# jupyter:
+#   kernelspec:
+#     display_name: Python 3
+#     language: python
+#     name: python3
+# ---
+
+# α
+""",
+    )
+
+
 def test_encoding_in_scripts_only(no_jupytext_version_number):
     """UTF encoding should not be added to markdown files"""
     nb = new_notebook(
         cells=[new_markdown_cell("α")],
         metadata={
+            "encoding": "# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-",
             "kernelspec": {
                 "display_name": "Python 3",
                 "language": "python",
                 "name": "python3",
-            }
+            },
         },
     )