[Python-Dev] PEP 263 -- Python Source Code Encoding

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
> > I just got a private response about the proposal from Atsuo Ishimoto,
> > Japan. They use two different encoding in day-to-day life (one for
> > windows, one for unix) and have their complete tool chain setup
> > to auto-convert all files between the two environments.
> >
> > Recognizing the magic comment would pose a problem for them,
> > since their tools assume conversion to the PC's locale setting.
> >
> > He proposed to make the interpreters default encoding the default
> > for source files which don't specify an encoding. That is
> > ASCII on all standard Python installations and different
> > encodings on tweaked installations.
> >
> > He also told me that they put raw Shift-JIS and EUC-JP
> > into Python literal strings -- just like Europeans do
> > with Latin-1.
> >
> > Wouldn't his suggestion be a good compromise for phase 2 ?
> 
> I'm OK with a way to change the default to something locale-specific,
> as long as there's also a way to make the default strict ASCII (for
> export).  Maybe python -A could force the default encoding to be ASCII
> even if the locale specifies something different.
> 
> (I'd still *prefer* it the other way around, where you have to specify
> an explicit option to make the default equal to the locale rather than
> ASCII, but I can see the other side.  Sigh.)

Let's put it this way: the interpreter's default encoding has
to be changed explicitly by the sys admin (in sitecustomize.py),
so the decision to take e.g. a locale specific default encoding
is one which the admin maintaining the installation has
to make (with all the consequences that go with it).

Per default, the default encoding is ASCII, so I don't
think we really need an extra option. 

Hmm, could be that python -S already implies this, BTW...
checking this reveils that even sys.setdefaultencoding()
remains available if -S is used. Perhaps we should remove
the API with -S too ?!

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
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