[Python-Dev] RE: Ill-defined encoding for CP875?
Tim Peters
tim.one@home.com
Sun, 13 May 2001 14:31:42 -0400
[M.-A. Lemburg]
> ...
> The "right" thing to do here, is to simply remove cp875
> from the test for round-tripping.
I'm relieved you think so, since that's what I already did <wink>.
> It is not the only encoding which fails this test, but it's not
> our fault: the codecs were all generated from the original codec
> maps at the Unicode.org site.
>
> If their mappings are broken, we can't do much about it... other
> than to ignore the error or remove the codec altogether.
On general principle I don't like either of those -- "in the face of
ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess". It's at least surprising to see
>>> unicode("?", "cp875").encode("cp875")
'\xfd'
>>>
now, yes? Would it be better if an ambiguous encoding raised an exception in
"strict" mode? That is, a third choice is to alert users when they're
relying on a broken part of a mapping.