[Python-3000] New io system and binary data (original) (raw)

Bill Janssen janssen at parc.com
Tue Sep 25 05:42:16 CEST 2007

Also, if there are other places in the > documentation > where it seems to imply that the distinction between text and binary modes is > meaningless on Unix systems, drop me a note and I'll have a look.

That's certainly the prescribed behavior for the C stdio streams on POSIX-compliant systems. I think a lot of the original design of the Python I/O system was based on that C stdio system, including names like stdin, stdout, and stderr.

Now that we've moved away from the C stdio model, and the distinction between text and binary streams is meaningful even on POSIX systems, perhaps we should also change those names to reflect that difference from C. Given that Py3K is a once-in-a-decade chance to break backwards compatibility, and all. Perhaps something like sys.io.input, sys.io.output, sys.io.err, or something similar.

Bill

More information about the Python-3000 mailing list