[Python-Dev] C API doc fix

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Steven Bethard wrote:
> On 9/29/05, Robey Pointer <robey at lag.net> wrote:
> 
>>Yesterday I ran into a bug in the C API docs.  The top of this page:
>>
>>     http://docs.python.org/api/unicodeObjects.html
>>
>>says:
>>
>>Py_UNICODE
>>     This type represents a 16-bit unsigned storage type which is
>>used by Python internally as basis for holding Unicode ordinals. On
>>platforms where wchar_t is available and also has 16-bits, Py_UNICODE
>>is a typedef alias for wchar_t to enhance native platform
>>compatibility. On all other platforms, Py_UNICODE is a typedef alias
>>for unsigned short.
> 
> 
> I believe this is the same issue that was brought up in May[1].  My
> impression was that people could not agree on a documentation patch.
> 
> [1] http://www.python.org/dev/summary/2005-05-01_2005-05-15.html

The problem was not so much getting the documentation, but the
fact that Python builds as UCS4 version in case it finds a TCL
version built for UCS4 - contrary to the UCS2 default that is
documented.

If I ever get around to working on my Python todo list, this
is one of the things I'd like to restore - UCS4 should always
be an *explicit* compile time option due to the consequences that
go with it.

Unfortunately, many Linux distros nowadays build Python with UCS4 --
introducing yet another dimension to binary Python binaries.

In case you wonder, we now have these dimensions:

* Python version (2.3, 2.4, ...)
* OS version (Linux, Solaris, Windows, Mac OS X, ...)
* Architecture (PowerPC, x86, x86_64, SunSPARC, ...)
* Unicode variant (UCS2, UCS4)

Finding the right binary for his or her Python is getting
increasingly more complicated for the Python user (and we
are seeing this every day in support requests).

Something we might want to introduce in Python 2.5 is a short
identifier in the Python interpreter interactive startup printout
that provides easy to find values for all of the above dimensions.
It already includes Python version and OS name, but is missing
the other bits and pieces.

Perhaps a flag that fires up Python and runs platform.py
would help too.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

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