[Python-Dev] why doesn't print pass unicode strings on to the file object?
Guido van Rossum
guido@python.org
Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:17:07 -0400
> > And then, what's the point of handling Unicode if we only accept
> > Unicode-encoded ASCII strings?
>
> By accepting Unicode, I would specifically require that they, at
> least:
> - do not crash the interpreter when being passed Unicode objects
> - attempt to perform some conversion if they do not support Unicode
> directly; if they don't know any specific conversion, the default
> conversion should be used (i.e. that they don't give a TypeError).
>
> With these assumptions, it is possible to allow print to pass Unicode
> objects to the file's write method, instead of converting Unicode
> itself. This, in turn, enables users to replace sys.stdout with
> something that supports a different encoding.
>
> Of course, you still may get Unicode errors, since some streams may
> not support all Unicode characters (e.g. since the terminal does not
> support them).
OK. That's very reasonable.
What do we need to change to make this happen?
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)