# String manipulation

def to_unicode(str_):

    if isinstance(str_, unicode): return str_

    encodings = ['utf_8', 'latin_1']

    for encoding in encodings:

        try: return unicode(str_, encoding)

        except UnicodeDecodeError, e: pass

    raise AssertionError(encoding+' is not a catch-all encoding')

def ensure_newl(str_): return str_.rstrip()+'\n'

def std_newl(str_): return str_.replace('\r\n', '\n').replace('\r', '\n')

def cleanup(str_): return std_newl(str_.strip())