31 Aug
2011
31 Aug
'11
5:12 p.m.
On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 1:09 AM, Glenn Linderman
So from reading all this discussion, I think this point is rather a key one... and it has been made repeatedly in different ways: Arrays are not suitable for manipulating Unicode character sequences, and the str type is an array with a veneer of text manipulation operations, which do not, and cannot, by themselves, efficiently implement Unicode character sequences.
I think this is too strong. The str type is indeed an array, and you can build useful Unicode manipulation APIs on top of it. Just like bytes are not UTF-8, but can be used to represent UTF-8 and a fully-compliant UTF-8 codec can be implemented on top of it. -- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)