Re: [Python-Dev] XML codec?

And what do you do once you've detected the encoding? You decode the input, so why not combine both into an XML decoder?

Because it is the XML parser that does the decoding, not the application. Also, it is better to provide functionality in a modular manner (i.e. encoding detection separately from encodings), and leaving integration of modules to the application, in particular if the integration is trivial. Regards, Martin