[Python-Dev] The -U flag (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Sun, 13 Oct 2002 19:48:33 -0400

Since Python allows Unicode strings in sys.path, we are making progress on getting -U to work. When entering interactive mode, the stumbling block is

idmap = '' for i in range(256): idmap = idmap + chr(i) del i Here, idmap is initialized with a Unicode string, and the chr(i) results are promoted to Unicode, which eventually causes a UnicodeErorr when you get past 127. The work-around would be to write idmap = str('') for i in range(256): idmap = idmap + chr(i) del i With that, we can enter interactive mode in python -U. Is such a change acceptable?

Only with a comment that explains it -- otherwise the next person looking at the code will remove it.

But didn't we at one point conclude that -U was never gonna work? And wasn't that why it's no longer documented?

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