[Python-Dev] unicode vs buffer (array) design issue can crash interpreter

See http://python.org/sf/1454485 for the gory details. Basically if you create a unicode array (array.array('u')) and try to append an 8-bit string (ie, not unicode), you can crash the interpreter. The problem is that the string is converted without question to a unicode buffer. Within unicode, it assumes the data to be valid, but this isn't necessarily the case. We wind up accessing an array with a negative index and boom. This is perhaps somewhat simplified and not exactly accurate. Probably best to look over the patch and make comments there on how best to fix this issue. n