[Python-Dev] Can't compile _tkinter.c with Redhat 9 (post-SF#719880)

[Mihai Ibanescu]

On 16 Jun 2003, Martin v. [iso-8859-15] L=F6wis wrote:

> "Jeff Hobbs" <jeffh@ActiveState.com> writes:
>=20
> > Right, and Unicode 4.0 is fresh out of diapers.  You can't even get
> > the regular code charts yet, you have to view the 4.0 beta ones.  Wit=
h
> > 4.0 the non-BMP finally gets a notable amount of characters, but they
> > are fairly weird ones that I'd be surprised to find a public font for.
>=20
> Actually, Unicode 3.2 added most of them; Unicode 4.0 has only minor
> additions. The biggest addition is the CJK unified ideographs in plane
> 2, which is of significance to a fifth of the world population,
> potentially - these are all current characters (instead of being only
> of scientific interest).
>=20
> I agree that it will take a while to have fonts for these
> available. However, unavailability of fonts should not stop us from
> supporting such characters in the libraries. Characters must pass
> through many processing steps before being rendered, and all of these
> steps must work flawlessly. So I think it is a good thing to start
> today, to have the application software ready by the time fonts become
> available.

Hello,

Here are the reasons Red Hat went for ucs4:

- Red Hat 7.3 shipped python 2.2 (compiled in the python2 rpm). Not too=20
surprising that a number of configuration tools were already using it. Bu=
t=20
no one saw tkinter was broken until too late - yes it was compiled with=20
ucs4.

- Red Hat 8.0 went to --enable-unicode=3Ducs2:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D63965

- While shipping an erratum for 7.3 that updated python2 to 2.2.2, I=20
realized the compatibility mess we are in. 7.3 is UCS4, 8.0 is UCS2. Part=
=20
of the reasons Red Hat 9 is called 9 and not 8.1 is to suggest there are=20
things that are incompatible with previous versions. There should be a=20
note in the release notes, stating python is now UCS4. The logic I tried=20
to apply was exactly what Martin said earlier - I would prefer to break=20
compatibility now rather than later when more people would notice :-)=20
Arguably, we should have beaten the heck out of tkinter at Red Hat 8 time=
=20
and fix it then - almost 2 years ago, that is.

> > > When I tested it, I found that it would break very easily. I was us=
ing
> > > the Redhat procedure, though, so I might have made something wrong.
> >=20
> > Can you feed me some sample scripts offline to test with?
>=20
> Will do, but it may take some time. It was so obvious to me that this
> is not at all officially supported that I did not bother reporting it,
> or taking notes.

The patch for tcl that we came up with was, IIRC, posted somewhere on the=
=20
tcl sites. I'll have to dig to find it again.

So, I am willing to wear the brown paper bag for not letting the communit=
y=20
know about the UCS4 change well in advance. I find it surprising to find=20
out _now_ that _tkinter.c was the one that was broken, I wish I knew that=
=20
before poking at fixing tcl instead. I am surprised the tcl community was=
=20
not aware of this either.

Anyway, UCS4 is something I don't think we can change now - and after=20
reading Martin's post, it makes me feel it's the correct way to go. How=20
can we fix the tcl/python interaction? If you have suggestions, please le=
t=20
me know (off-list would be fine too).=20

Cheers,
Misa