Re: [Jython-users] Unicode

[<bc...@wo...>]

[Paul Prescod]

>Finn Bock wrote:
>> 
>>...
>> 
>> The single argument unicode() call will use the default encoding. That
>> can be changed to something other than "ascii" and then a no-op makes
>> less sense:
>> 
>> [d:\]p22 -S
>
>There is a reason you needed to put in that -S. 

True. Which is why I added my startup command to the snippet.

>Changing the default encoding is not recommended and is not really 
>officially supported. 

Right, but the current default value of "ascii" is not written in stone.
It just happened to be the lowest common denominator that the major
unicode players could agree about. You too remember the fighting, it
wasn't pretty.

>I would suggest that a higher priority be put on normal uses than on
>variant ones. 

Is a no-op a normal use? Maybe when porting CPython applications?

>In the interest of full disclosure, I have been a strong critic of the
>idea that there should be a per-machine changable default encoding.

I agree that the setting should *not* be changable, but I *strongly*
disagree with the current choice of ascii. It only make sense to
americans.

In jython the IMO obvious default would be the file.encoding property.
Maybe I should have picked that default when I added unicode support,
but after seeing the casualties of the that discussion on python-dev, I
didn't dare.

regards,
finn