[Python-Dev] decoding errors when comparing strings

[Fredrik Lundh]

paul wrote:
> As soon as you find a character out of the ASCII range in one of the
> strings, I think that you should report that the two strings are
> unequal.

sounds reasonable -- but how do you flag "unequal" in cmp?  which
value is "larger" if all that we know is that they're different...

> We can't have exceptions popping out of dictionaries and other "blind
> compare" situations. Is there any precedent for throwing an exception
> on cmp?

not really.  it's a bit amusing that

    "a" =3D=3D x

works for all built-in types, except
unicode strings...

(not to mention that "a" < x works,
in a way...)

> Also, is it really necessary to allow raw non-ASCII characters in =
source
> code though? We know that they aren't portable across editing
> environments, so one person's happy face will be another person's left
> double-dagger.

I suppose changing that would break code.  maybe it's time
to reopen the "pragma encoding" thread?

(I'll dig up my old proposal, and post it under a new subject).

</F>