[Python-3000] locale-aware strings ?

[Jim Jewett]

On 9/1/06, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> > today's Python supports "locale aware" 8-bit strings ...
> > to what extent should this be supported by Python 3000 ?

> Since all strings will be Unicode by then:

>  >>> u"åäö".isalpha()
> True

Two followup questions, then ...

(1)  To what extent should python support files (including stdin,
stdout) in local (non-unicode) encodings?  (not at all, per-file,
settable global default?)

(2)  To what extent will strings have an opaque (or at least
on-demand) backing store, so that decoding/encoding could be delayed?
(For example, Swedish text could be stored in single-byte characters,
and only converted to standard unicode on the rare occasions when it
met strings in an incompatible encoding.)

-jJ