This library is used for adding, and removing diacritics from strings.

Start by importing the module:

import dcl

DCL currently supports a multitude of diacritics:

• acute
• breve
• caron
• cedilla
• grave
• interpunct
• macron
• ogonek
• ring
• ring_and_acute
• slash
• stroke
• stroke_and_acute
• tilde
• tittle
• umlaut/diaresis
• umlaut_and_macron

Each accent has their own attribute which is directly accessible from the dcl module.

dcl.acute('a')
>>> 'á'

These attributes return a Character object, which is essentially just a handy "wrapper" around our diacritic, which we can use to access various attributes to retrieve further information about the diacritic we're focusing on.

char = dcl.ogonek('a')

repr(char)
>>> "<ogonek 'ą'>"

char.character  # the same as str(char)
>>> 'ą'

char.diacritic  # some return <unprintable>
>>> '˛'

char.diacritic_name
>>> 'ogonek'

char.raw  # returns the raw representation of our character
>>> '\U00000105'

char.raw_diacritic 
>>> '\U000002db'

Some functions can't take certain letters. For example, the letter h cannot take a cedilla diacritic. In this case, an exception is raised named DiacriticError. You can access this exception via dcl.errors.DiacriticError.

from dcl.errors import DiacriticError

try:
    char = dcl.cedilla('h')
except DiacriticError as e:
    print(e)
else:
    print(repr(char))

>>> 'Character h cannot take a cedilla diacritic'

If you want to, you may also use the DiacriticApplicant object from dcl.objects. The functions you see above use this object too, and it's virtually the same principle, except from the fact that we use properties to get the diacritic, and the class simply holds the string and it's properties. Alas with the functions above, this object also returns the same Character object through it's properties.

from dcl.objects import DiacriticApplicant

da = DiacriticApplicant('a')
repr(da.ogonek)
>>> "<ogonek 'ą'>"

There are various tools which can remove, count, check for, and get all given diacritics from a string.

The clean_diacritics function, accessible straight from the dcl module, allows us to completely clean a string from any diacritics.

dcl.clean_diacritics("Krëûšàdå")
>>> 'Kreusada'

dcl.clean_diacritics("Café")
>>> 'Cafe'

Along with this function, there's also has_diacritics, get_diacritics, and count_diacritics.

The has_diacritics function simply checks if the string contains a character with a diacritic.

dcl.has_diacritics("Café")
>>> True

dcl.has_diacritics("dcl")
>>> False

The get_diacritics function is used to get all the diacritics in a string. It returns a dictionary. For each diacritic in the string, the key will show the diacritic's index in the string, and the value will show the Character representation.

dcl.get_diacritics("Café")
>>> {3: <acute 'é'>}

dcl.get_diacritics("Krëûšàdå")
>>> {2: <umlaut 'ë'>, 3: <circumflex 'û'>, 4: <caron 'š'>, 5: <grave 'à'>, 7: <ring 'å'>}

The count_diacritics function counts the number of diacritics in a string. The actual implementation of this simply returns the dictionary length from get_diacritics.

dcl.count_diacritics("Café")
>>> 1

In version 1, various new functions were added. Firstly, there is the cantake() function. This defines whether the letter(s) in a string can take a given diacritic.

dcl.cantake('a', 'ogonek')
>>> True
dcl.cantake('f', 'ring')
>>> False

This function checks every letter, so you can provide more than one letter! It will return based on whether all letters in the string can take the specific diacritic.

It is better practice to use the cantake() function instead of try/except blocks with the base functions, such as like this:

# Don't do this!
try:
    dcl.slash('a')
except DiacriticError:
    return False
else:
    return True

# Do this instead:
dcl.cantake('a', 'slash')

The word "clock" is a great example. Every letter in this word can take an acute diacritic, therefore this function returns True. This function is probably more useful for checking single characters, though. You use it how you want!

dcl.cantake('clock', 'acute')
>>> True

What's more, you can even check what letters an accent takes by using the cantakelist() function.

dcl.cantakelist('caron')
>>> ['c', 'd', 'e', 'g', 'k', 'l', 'n', 'r', 's', 't', 'z']

Side note: Is it just me who keeps reading "cantake" as "pancake"? Smh...

Creating a program would be pretty simple for this, and I'd love to be able to help you out with a base idea. Have a look at this for example:

import dcl
import string

from dcl.errors import DiacriticError

def main():
    char = str(input("Enter a character: "))
    if not char in string.ascii_letters:
        print("Please enter a letter from a-Z.")
        return
    accent = str(input("Enter an accent, you can choose from the following: " + ", ".join(dcl.diacritic_list)))
    if not dcl.isdiacritictype(accent):
        print("That was not a valid accent.")
        return
    try:
        function = getattr(dcl, accent)  # or dcl.objects.DiacriticApplicant
        output = function(char)
    except DiacriticError as e:
        print(e)
    else:
        print(str(output))

It's worth checking if the provided accent is a diacritic type. If it is, then you can use getattr. Without checking, the user could provide a default global such as __file__.

You can also create a program which can remove diacritics from a string. It's made easy!

import dcl

string = str(input("Enter the string which you want to be cleared from diacritics: "))
print("Here is your cleaned string: " + dcl.clean_diacritics(string))

Or perhaps your program wants to count the number of diacritics contained within your string.

import dcl

string = str(input("This program will count the number of diacritics contained in your input. Enter a string: "))
count = dcl.count_diacritics(string)
if count == 1:
    grammar = "is"
else:
    grammar = "are"
print(f"There {grammar} {count} diacritics/accent in your string.")