[Python-Dev] bytes (original) (raw)

[Python-Dev] bytes / unicode

P.J. Eby pje at telecommunity.com
Thu Jun 24 19:07:01 CEST 2010

At 05:12 PM 6/24/2010 +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

Guido van Rossum writes:

> For example: how we can make the suite of functions used for URL > processing more polymorphic, so that each developer can choose for > herself how URLs need to be treated in her application. While you have come down on the side of polymorphism (as opposed to separate functions), I'm a little nervous about it. Specifically, Philip Eby expressed a desire for earlier type errors, while polymorphism seems to ensure that you'll need to Look Before You Leap to get early error detection.

This doesn't have to be in the functions; it can be in the types. Mixed-type string operations have to do type checking and upcasting already, but if the protocol were open, you could make an encoded-bytes type that would handle the error checking.

(Btw, in some earlier emails, Stephen, you implied that this could be fixed with codecs -- but it can't, because the problem isn't with the bytes containing invalid Unicode, it's with the Unicode containing invalid bytes -- i.e., characters that can't be encoded to the ultimate codec target.)

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