[Python-Dev] unicode hell/mixing str and unicode as dictionary keys

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Ralf Schmitt wrote:
> M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>> Ralf Schmitt wrote:
>>> Does python 2.4 catch any exception when comparing keys (which are not 
>>> basestrings) in dictionaries?
>> Yes. It does so for all equality compares that need to be done
>> as part of the hash collision algorithm (not only w/r to strings
>> and Unicode, but in general).
>>
>> This was changed in 2.5, which now reports the exception.
>>
> 
> So, this thread isn't about "unicode hell" at all.

For some reason people always think of hell when dealing with Unicode.
Instead, the should think of hell when dealing with strings.

> I guess this change will break lots of code (or will reveal lots of 
> broken code...as it did in my case actually).

I don't think it will break a lot of code that wasn't already
broken.

Let's see how many reports we get for 2.5b3 and then decide.

If things turn out bad, we might silence the UnicodeError
and instead issue a warning everytime this situation occurs.
In 2.6 we'd then revert to raising an exception.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

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