[Python-Dev] Allowing u.encode() to return non-strings (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Thu Jul 1 23:45:52 CEST 2004


Bill Janssen wrote:

I assume, though, that the args to "read()" and friends are still about bytes.

Yes. It is not possible to determine, in advance, the number of bytes needed to decode a given number of characters. Therefore, a codec typically needs to either read more bytes than requested, or return less characters (if the bytes read don't happen to end on a character boundary).

So the size parameter to .read() is just a hint - a codec might chose to completely ignore it.

Regards, Martin



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