Author: guido.van.rossum Date: Mon Oct 15 17:42:31 2007 New Revision: 58470
Modified: python/branches/py3k/Doc/library/locale.rst Log: Update what the locale module documents about string operations. Modified: python/branches/py3k/Doc/library/locale.rst ============================================================================== --- python/branches/py3k/Doc/library/locale.rst (original) +++ python/branches/py3k/Doc/library/locale.rst Mon Oct 15 17:42:31 2007 @@ -498,26 +498,23 @@ before the settings have been restored. If, when coding a module for general use, you need a locale independent version -of an operation that is affected by the locale (such as :func:`string.lower`, or +of an operation that is affected by the locale (such as certain formats used with :func:`time.strftime`), you will have to find a way to do it without using the standard library routine. Even better is convincing yourself that using locale settings is okay. Only as a last resort should you document that your module is not compatible with non-\ ``C`` locale settings. -.. index:: module: string - -The case conversion functions in the :mod:`string` module are affected by the -locale settings. When a call to the :func:`setlocale` function changes the -:const:`LC_CTYPE` settings, the variables ``string.lowercase``, -``string.uppercase`` and ``string.letters`` are recalculated. Note that code -that uses these variable through ':keyword:`from` ... :keyword:`import` ...', -e.g. ``from string import letters``, is not affected by subsequent -:func:`setlocale` calls. - The only way to perform numeric operations according to the locale is to use the special functions defined by this module: :func:`atof`, :func:`atoi`, :func:`format`, :func:`str`. +There is no way to perform case conversions and character classifications +according to the locale. For (Unicode) text strings these are done according +to the character value only, while for byte strings, the conversions and +classifications are done according to the ASCII value of the byte, and bytes +whose high bit is set (i.e., non-ASCII bytes) are never converted or considered +part of a character class such as letter or whitespace. + .. _embedding-locale: _______________________________________________ Python-3000-checkins mailing list Python-3000-checkins@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-3000-checkins
