[Python-3000] Unicode and OS strings (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Sep 18 17:11:41 CEST 2007

On 9/17/07, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:

Note that some people are currently arguing that sys.argv should be an array of bytes objects, and Guido has not yet said "no".

Then let me say "no" now. I'd be happy to support a lower-level API for getting at the actual bytes in the C-level argv and env (even taking into account modifications to these made by C code out of our control; and in Windows we should provide access to the command line text as well). But argv and environ should be strings. If they contain non-ASCII bytes I am currently in favor os doing a best-effort decoding using the default locale encoding, replacing errors with '?' rather than throwing exception.

Others have already explained why (they are typically text entered by a user).

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

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