I have experience with C++ and Delphi. So I know the general concepts of programming. I tried to run this pyton-script in IDLE

import os


with open("ip_list.txt") as file:
    park = file.read()
    park = park.splitlines()
    print(" {park}  n")
    # ping for each ip in the file
for ip in park:
    response = os.popen(f"ping -c 4 {ip} ").read()
    # Pinging each IP address 4 times
    
    #saving some ping output details to output file
    if("Request timed out." or "unreachable") in response:
        print(response)
        f = open("ip_output.txt","a")
        f.write(str(ip) + ' link is down'+'n')
        f.close() 
    else:
        print(response)
        f = open("ip_output.txt","a")  
        f.write(str(ip) + ' is up '+'n')
        f.close() 
    # print output file to screen
with open("ip_output.txt") as file:
    output = file.read()
    f.close()
    print(output)
with open("ip_output.txt","w") as file:    
    pass

I get this error-message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/dipl-/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python312/python-read-ip-textfile-ping-store-results-004.py", line 10, in <module>
    response = os.popen(f"ping -c 4 {ip} ").read()
  File "C:Usersdipl-AppDataLocalProgramsPythonPython312Libencodingscp1252.py", line 23, in decode
    return codecs.charmap_decode(input,self.errors,decoding_table)[0]
UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' codec can't decode byte 0x81 in position 21: character maps to <undefined>

I did some research on this error-message and found some answers telling that the encoding is wrong and that an encoding must be added.

How do I do add a certain type of encoding?

Do I have to use cp1252-encoding?

And as this script uses a user-written textfile with IPAdresses how the heck do I save such a file with cp1252-enocding?

From these questions you can see: zero knowledge about how to configure encoding or how to modify this script to work with “standard” textfiles written in Notepadd++ or something similar

I tried to add encoding with this modification of the code

import os


with open("ip_list.txt",encoding="latin1") as file:
    park = file.read()
    park = park.splitlines()
    print(" {park}  n")
    # ping for each ip in the file
for ip in park:
    response = os.popen(f"ping -c 4 {ip} ").read()
    # Pinging each IP address 4 times
    
    #saving some ping output details to output file
    if("Request timed out." or "unreachable") in response:
        print(response)
        f = open("ip_output.txt","a",encoding="latin1")
        f.write(str(ip) + ' link is down'+'n')
        f.close() 
    else:
        print(response)
        f = open("ip_output.txt","a",encoding="latin1")  
        f.write(str(ip) + ' is up '+'n')
        f.close() 
    # print output file to screen
with open("ip_output.txt",encoding="latin1") as file:
    output = file.read()
    f.close()
    print(output)
with open("ip_output.txt","w",encoding="latin1") as file:    
    pass

Error stays the same
error-message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:Usersdipl-AppDataLocalProgramsPythonPython312python-read-ip-textfile-ping-store-results-003.py", line 10, in <module>
    response = os.popen(f"ping -c 4 {ip} ").read()
  File "C:Usersdipl-AppDataLocalProgramsPythonPython312Libencodingscp1252.py", line 23, in decode
    return codecs.charmap_decode(input,self.errors,decoding_table)[0]
UnicodeDecodeError: 'charmap' codec can't decode byte 0x81 in position 21: character maps to <undefined>

What do I have to change in the code to get rid of this encoding-error?