Getting adaped output from unicode text, without a connection

Hello,

I need to write some static .sql files (just as an explanation, it is startup code for Django). Some of the strings are non-ascii. I'm stumped about how to get utf-8 instead of latin-1 in the file.

I'm generating the .sql as strings, without a connection. I found a prior message on this list that suggested what to do (1) and came up with this routine.

def todb(s):
psycopg2.extensions.register_type(psycopg2.extensions.UNICODE)
psycopg2.extensions.register_type(psycopg2.extensions.DECIMAL)
psycopg2.extensions.register_type(psycopg2.extensions.FLOAT)
adapted = psycopg2.extensions.adapt(s)
return adapted.getquoted()

But it encodes in latin-1. I understand from the docs that I need to get a connection and set the .encoding attribute, but I can't see how to get a connection instance without a db handy. For instance,

>>> conn = psycopg2.connect(database = None)

fails.

I expect that I am asking a dopey question (I'm not very sure what I am doing) but I'd appreciate a pointer even if it makes me feel dumb.

Thanks,
Jim

(1) http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/AANLkTik+tq8hbnCj3ROmOLNV1DSw48o4sDoSvnxTN3R8@mail.gmail.com