[Python-Dev] Re: [Python-checkins]python/dist/src/Objects unicodeobject.c, 2.197, 2.198 (original) (raw)

Jeff Epler jepler at unpythonic.net
Mon Sep 22 08:04:38 EDT 2003

On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 01🔞32PM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:

While working on the config changes, I noticed that Python now defaults to UCS4 when it find a Tcl/Tk version that supports UCS4...

I can't say that I particularly like this, since the config script now makes an implicit choice based on the third-party software configuration with consequences that are not made obvious for the user. E.g. on platforms that happen to have Tcl/tk installed with UCS4 configuration, Python will compile using UCS4 (regardeless of whether the user wants to use Tcl/Tk or not), on system that don't have such Tcl/tk installation, Python compiles using UCS2. I'd suggest to make the UCS4 choice explicit again.

See the (complete lack of) discussion on the bug at http://python.org/sf/798202

I can only say that this is a convenient patch for me, and probably for any redhat9 user who has not built his own tcl/tk. On the other hand, this patch is unlikely to actually affect anybody on a different platform.

I don't think it's such a bad idea to have Python detect the configuration it must use to make a very important, bundled extension work properly. Would you feel any different if a different patch was added, which made --enable-unicode=tcl enable the behavior of this patch?

Jeff

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list