[Python-Dev] Adding .decode() method to Unicode

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "FL" == Fredrik Lundh <fredrik@pythonware.com> writes:

    FL> uhuh?  and how exactly is this cooler than being able to do
    FL> something like the following:

    |     import quopri, base64
    |     s = msg['from']
    |     parts = s.split('?')
    |     if parts[2].lower() == 'q':
    |         name = quopri.decodestring(parts[3])
    |     elif parts[2].lower() == 'b':
    |         name = base64.decodestring(parts[3])

    FL> (going through the codec registry is slower, and imports more
    FL> modules, but what's so cool with that?)

-------------------- snip snip --------------------
Python 2.2a0 (#4, Jun  6 2001, 13:03:36) 
[GCC egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)] on linux2
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import quopri
>>> quopri.decodestring
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
AttributeError: 'quopri' module has no attribute 'decodestring'
>>> quopri.encodestring
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
AttributeError: 'quopri' module has no attribute 'encodestring'
-------------------- snip snip --------------------

Much cooler :)

Okay, okay, so we /could/ add encodestring/decodestring to quopri.py,
which isn't a bad idea.  But it seems to me that the s.encode()
s.decode() API is nicely universal for any supported encoding.

but-what-do-i-know?-ly y'rs,
-Barry