[Python-Dev] Printing and unicode (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Tue, 12 Nov 2002 14:16:02 -0500

> > B. A file indicates "unicode-awareness" somehow. For a Unicode-aware > > file, it tries unicode, str, and repr, in order. > > I like this.

Ok, then the question is: How can a file indicate its unicode-awareness? I propose that presence of an attribute "encoding" is taken as such an indication; this would cover all existing cases with no change to the file-like objects.

+1

In case the stream is "natively" Unicode (i.e. doesn't ever convert to byte strings), setting encoding to None should be allowed (this actually indicates that StringIO should have the encoding attribute).

+1

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)