[I18n-sig] Strawman Proposal (2): Encoding attributes

[Paul Prescod]

"M.-A. Lemburg" wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
> Ah, ok. The encoding information will only be applied to literal
> Unicode strings (u"text"), right ?

No, that's very different than what I am suggesting.

The encoding is applied to the *text file*. In the initial version, the
only place Python would allow Unicode characters is in Unicode literals
so currently the only USEFUL place to put those special characters is in
Unicode literals. But Python may one day allow Unicode variable names or
"simple string literals" and this mechanism will not change its
definition or behavior. Only the Python grammar will change.

The interpretation of string literals is a totally separate issue.

 Paul Prescod