[Numpy-discussion] Extent of unicode types in numpy

[Eric Firing]

Francesc, Travis,

Francesc Altet wrote:
[...]
> All in all, my opinion is that allowing the coexistence of different
> sizes of unicode types in numpy would be a receipt for disaster when
> one wants to transport unicode characters between platforms with
> python interpreters compiled with different unicode sizes.

I agree--it would be a nightmare.


> Anyway, I don't know if the recommendation of compiling Python with
> UCS4 is spread enough or not in the different distributions, but
> people can easily check this with:
> 
> 
>>>>len(buffer(u"u"))
> 
> 4
> 
> if the output of this is 4 (as in my example), then the interpreter is
> using UCS4; if it is 2, it is using UCS2.

No, it is not sufficiently widespread; Mandriva 2006 python is compiled 
for UCS2.

Eric