[Python-Dev] open(): set the default encoding to 'utf-8' in Python 3.3? (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Tue Jun 28 16:48:09 CEST 2011

On 28/06/2011 15:36, Terry Reedy wrote:

On 6/28/2011 10:02 AM, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:

How about a more radical change: have open() in Py3 default to opening the file in binary mode, if no encoding is given (even if the mode doesn't include 'b') ?

That'll make it compatible to the Py2 world again I disagree. I believe S = open('myfile.txt').read() now return a text string in both Py2 and Py3 and a subsequent 'abc' in S works in both.

Nope, it returns a bytestring in Python 2. Mistakenly treating bytestrings as text is one of the things we aimed to correct in the transition to Python 3.

Michael

> and avoid all the encoding guessing.

Making such default encodings depend on the locale has already failed to work when we first introduced a default encoding in Py2, so I don't understand why we are repeating the same mistake again in Py3 (only in a different area). I do not remember any proposed change during the Py3 design discussions. Note that in Py2, Unix applications often leave out the 'b' mode, since there's no difference between using it or not. I believe it makes a difference now as to whether one gets str or bytes. Only on Windows, you'll see a difference. I believe the only difference now on Windows is the decoding used, not the return type.

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