[Python-3000] Displaying strings containing unicode escapes

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Nick Coghlan writes:
 > Martin v. Löwis wrote:
 > >> Is new built-in function desirable, or just document is good enough?
 > > 
 > > Traditionally, I take the position that new built-in functions are
 > > rarely desirable; this one is no exception.
 > 
 > I agree with that, but string.repr_ascii may be a reasonable thing to add.

But this is basically completely a codec issue.  We have an internal
representation, and we want to translate it in a stream-oriented way
to an external representation.  Unless there's an efficiency issue,
why not just provide a hook for a codec?