Hi, 2016-02-08 18:02 GMT+01:00 Brett Cannon <br...@python.org>: > If Unicode string don't work in Python 2 then what is Python 2/3 to do as a > cross-platform solution if we completely remove bytes support in Python 3? > Wouldn't that mean there is no common type between Python 2 & 3 that one can > use which will work with the os module except native strings (which are > difficult to get right)?
IMHO we have to put a line somewhere between Python 2 and Python 3. For some specific use cases, there is no good solution which works on both Python versions. For filenames, there is no simple design on Python 2. bytes is the natural choice on UNIX, whereas Unicode is preferred on Windows. But it's difficult to handle two types in the same code base. As a consequence, most users use bytes on Python 2, which is a bad choice for Windows... On Python 3, it's much simpler: always use Unicode. Again, the PEP 383 helps on UNIX. I wrote a PoC for Mercurial to always use Unicode, but the idea was rejected since Mercurial must support undecodable filenames on UNIX. It's possible on Python 3 (str+PEP 383), not on Python 2. I tried to port Mercurial to Python 3 and use Unicode for filenames in the same change. It's probably better to do that in two steps: first port to Python 3, then use Unicode. I guess that the final change is to drop Python 2? I don't know if it's feasible for Mercurial. Victor _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
