[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 277: Unicode file name support for Windows NT, was PEP-time ? ...

[Neil Hodgson]

M.-A. Lemburg, regarding unicodefilenames():

> Sounds like the run-time error solution would at least "solve"
> the issue in terms of making it depend on the used file name
> and underlying OS or file system.

   It is much better to choose a technique that will always work rather than
try to recover from a technique that may fail.

   unicodefilenames() can be dropped in favour of explicit OS and version
checks but this is replacing a simple robust check with a more fragile one.
unicodefilenames() will allow other environments to declare that client code
will be more robust by choosing to use Unicode strings as file name
arguments. This could include UTF-8 based systems such as OS X and BeOS, as
well as Windows variants like CE.

   Neil