[Python-3000] PEP 3138- String representation in Python 3000 (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Thu May 15 05:00:49 CEST 2008

Greg Ewing writes:

Wasn't there a big discussion once before about whether encode/decode should be usable for things other than unicode<->non-unicode transformations? I thought the conclusion reached back then was that they shouldn't.

That group prevailed, but it was more like a WBA title bout ... here's the rematch. This one won't "prove" anything either.

Is there some reason the transformations being talked about can't just be provided as functions that operate on strings or bytes?

This discussion isn't about whether it could be done or not, it's about where people expect to find such functionality. Personally, if I can find .encode('euc-jp') on a string object, I would expect to find .encode('gzip') on a bytes object, too.

I think this one is just going to come down to BDFL pronouncement about which is more Pythonic, because I don't really see either point of view as more "natural".

More information about the Python-3000 mailing list