[Python-Dev] directive statement (PEP 244)

Paul Prescod paulp@ActiveState.com
Mon, 16 Jul 2001 11:36:58 -0700


"M.-A. Lemburg" wrote:
> 
>....
> 
> We don't ?
> 
> Paul suggested adding encoding directives for 8-bit
> strings and comments, but these cannot be used by the Python
> compiler in any way and would only be for the benefit of an
> editor, so I don't really see the need for them. 

Sorry I wasn't clear. Like \F, I think that the best model is that of
XML, Java and (I've learned recently) Perl. There should be a single
encoding for the file. Logically speaking it should be decoded before
tokenization or parsing. Practically speaking it may be simpler to fake
this logical decoding in the implementation. I don't care how it is
implemented. Logically the model should be that any encoding declaration
affects the interpretation of the *file* not some particular construct
in the file.

If this is too difficult to implement today then maybe we should wait on
the whole feature until someone has time to do it right.
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