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

[Jack Jansen]

On Thursday, January 17, 2002, at 12:42  PM, Martin v. Loewis wrote:

>> I suppose this is due to the fact that Mac file systems store
>> extended attributes (much like what OS/2 does too) along with the
>> file -- that's a really nice way of being able to extend file
>> system semantics on a per-file basis; much better than the Windows
>> Registry or the MIME guess-by-extension mechanisms.
>
> I'd assume it is different: They just *define* that all local file
> systems they have control over use UTF-8 on disk, atleast for BSD ufs;
> for HFS, it might be that they 'just know' what encoding is used on an
> HFS partition. I doubt they use extended attributes for this, as they
> reportedly return UTF-8 even for file systems they've never seen
> before; this may be either due to static knowledge (e.g. that VFAT is
> UCS-2LE), or through guessing.

It's actually a whole lot simpler: for filesystems with an 
encoding that is open to interpretation the user specifies it 
during mount:-)
--
- Jack Jansen        <Jack.Jansen@oratrix.com>        
http://www.cwi.nl/~jack -
- If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- 
Emma Goldman -