[Python-Dev] Python in Unicode context (original) (raw)

François Pinard pinard at iro.umontreal.ca
Tue Aug 3 21:47:24 CEST 2004

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Martin v. Löwis wrote:

Things that have been proposed earlier on, extended a bit:

b'xxx' - return a buffer to hold binary data; same as buffer(s'abc') s'abc' - (forced) 8-bit string literal in source code encoding u'abc' - (forced) Unicode literal

I currently do not see the need of a fine distinction between b' or s' as a prefix. s' and u' are the first letter of the type (str' or unicode') and that makes them natural.

'abc' - maps to s'abc' per default, can map to u'abc' based on the command line switch -U or a module switch

The idea would be, indeed, to create some kind of per-module switch. I'm less sure that `-U' is any useful in practice, as long as all of the library does not become "Unicode-aware", whatever that would imply...

P.S. - Command line switch for command line switch :-), a switch for fully turning on the newer type system would be more productive than `-U', and put some pressure for refreshening the library in this area. Just curious, as I do not intend to volunteer in this area, is there something else than Exception in the Python internals that rely on old-style classes?

-- François Pinard http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard

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