Simon Cross wrote: >> Unfortunately, for Windows, the situation would >> be exactly the opposite: the byte-oriented interface cannot represent >> all data; only the character-oriented API can. > > Is the second part of this actually true? My understanding may be > flawed, but surely all Unicode data can be converted to and from bytes > using UTF-8?
[I hope, by "second part", you refer to the part that I left] It's true that UTF-8 could represent all Windows file names. However, the byte-oriented APIs of Windows do not use UTF-8, but instead, they use the Windows ANSI code page (which varies with the installation). > Given this, can't people who > must have access to all files / environment data just use the bytes > interface? No, because the Windows API would interpret the bytes differently, and not find the right file. Regards, Martin _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
