[Python-Dev] RE: [Patches] [ python-Patches-410465 ] Allow pre-encoded strings as filenames

[Mark Hammond]

[Tim]
> Mark (or anyone else who understands all this), were doc changes included?
> Can someone please add a briefer user-oriented blurb to Misc/NEWS too?

No problem.

Where should the "real" documentation go?  It seems maybe we need a new
sub-heading under the "6.1 - os -- Misc. OS Interface" - something like:

6.1.x - Unicode and the file system
  - general discussion.
  - Windows specific
  - Mac specific should that appear.
  - OS' with no special support (ie, "the rest")

Does that make sense?

I have made this change to Misc/NEWS.  Does this look OK (obviously once I
know what to replace "[????]" with :)

And-I-will-do-the-registry-docs-at-the-same-time ly,

Mark.

Index: NEWS
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/python/python/dist/src/Misc/NEWS,v
retrieving revision 1.166
diff -r1.166 NEWS
4a5,21
> - Some operating systems now support the concept of a default Unicode
>   encoding for file system operations.  Notably, Windows supports 'mbcs'
>   as the default.  The Macintosh will also adopt this concept in the
medium
>   term, altough the default encoding for that platform will be other than
>   'mbcs'.
>   On operating system that support non-ascii filenames, it is common for
>   functions that return filenames (such as os.listdir()) to return Python
>   string objects pre-encoded using the default file system encoding for
>   the platform.  As this encoding is likely to be different from Python's
>   default encoding, converting this name to a Unicode object before
passing
>   it back to the Operating System would result in a Unicode error, as
Python
>   would attempt to use it's default encoding (generally ASCII) rather
>   than the default encoding for the file system.
>   In general, this change simply removes surprises when working with
>   Unicode and the file system, making these operations work as
>   you expect, increasing the transparency of Unicode objects in this
context.
>   See [????] for more details, including examples.