[Python-Dev] str object going in Py3K (original) (raw)

Adam Olsen rhamph at gmail.com
Wed Feb 15 05:14:45 CET 2006

On 2/14/06, Just van Rossum <just at letterror.com> wrote:

+1 for two functions.

My choice would be open() for binary and opentext() for text. I don't find that backwards at all: the text function is going to be more different from the current open() function then the binary function would be since in many ways the str type is closer to bytes than to unicode. Maybe it's even better to use opentext() AND openbinary(), and deprecate plain open(). We could even introduce them at the same time as bytes() (and leave the open() deprecation for 3.0).

Thus providing us with a transition period, even with warnings on use of the old function.

I think coming up with a way to transition that doesn't silently break code and doesn't leave us with permanent ugly names is the hardest challenge here.

+1 on opentext(), openbinary() -1 on silently changing open() in a way that results in breakage

-- Adam Olsen, aka Rhamphoryncus

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