[Python-Dev] Python and the Unicode Character Database (original) (raw)

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Thu Dec 2 00🔞10 CET 2010

Martin v. Löwis wrote:

I think the OP (haiyang kang) already indicated that he finds it quite unlikely that anybody would possibly want to enter that. Who's talking about entering it into the program at a keyboard directly, though? Input to a program can come from all kinds of crazy sources. Just because it wasn't typed by the person at the keyboard using this program doesn't stop it being input to the program. I think haiyang kang claimed exactly that - it won't ever be input to a program. I trust him on that - and so should you, unless you have sufficient experience with the Chinese language and writing system. Note that I'm not saying this is common. Nor am I saying it's a desirable situation. I'm saying it is a feasible use case, to be dismissed only if there is strong evidence that it's not used by existing Python code. And indeed, for the Chinese numerals, we have such strong evidence.

With full respect to haiyang kang, hear-say from one person can hardly be described as "strong" evidence -- particularly, as Alexander Belopolsky pointed out, the use-case described isn't currently supported by Python. Given that what haiyang kang describes can't be done, the fact that people don't do it is hardly surprising -- nor is it a good reason for taking away functionality that does exist.

-- Steven

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