Support non-ASCII characters in function arguments

pygmt/helpers/utils.py

@@ -91,6 +91,41 @@ def data_kind(data, x=None, y=None, z=None, required_z=False):
     return kind
 
 
+def non_ascii_to_octal(argstr):
+    r"""
+    Translate non-ASCII characters to their corresponding octal codes.
+
+    Currently, only ISOLatin1+ character set is supported.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    argstr : str
+        The string to be translated.
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    str
+        The translated string.
+
+    Examples
+    --------
+    >>> non_ascii_to_octal("ABC ±120° DEF")
+    'ABC \\261120\\260 DEF'
+    """
+    # Mapping for non-ASCII characters in ISOLatin1 charset
+    # Reference: https://www.ascii.ca/adobeiso.htm
+    mapping_isolatin1 = {chr(i): "\\" + format(i, "o") for i in range(160, 256)}
+    # Mapping for extended non-ASCII characters in ISOLatin1+ charset
+    mapping_isolatin1plus = {
+        c: "\\" + format(i, "o")
+        for c, i in zip(
+            "•…™—–fižšŒ†‡Ł⁄‹Š›œŸŽł‰„“”ı`´ˆ˜¯˘˙¨‚˚¸'˝˛ˇ",
+            list(range(25, 32)) + list(range(127, 160)),
+        )
+    }
+    return argstr.translate(str.maketrans(mapping_isolatin1 | mapping_isolatin1plus))
+
+
 def build_arg_string(kwdict, confdict=None, infile=None, outfile=None):
     r"""
     Convert keyword dictionaries and input/output files into a GMT argument
@@ -213,7 +248,7 @@ def build_arg_string(kwdict, confdict=None, infile=None, outfile=None):
         gmt_args = [str(infile)] + gmt_args
     if outfile:
         gmt_args.append("->" + str(outfile))
-    return " ".join(gmt_args)
+    return non_ascii_to_octal(" ".join(gmt_args))
 
 
 def is_nonstr_iter(value):