[Python-Dev] from __future__ import unicode_strings?

[Jean-Paul Calderone]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 11:24:35 +0100, "M.-A. Lemburg" <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
>Neil Schemenauer wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 16, 2006 at 02:43:02AM +0100, Thomas Wouters wrote:
>>> On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 05:23:56PM -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>>>
>>>>>     from __future__ import unicode_strings
>>>> Didn't we have a command-line option to do this? I believe it was
>>>> removed because nobody could see the point. (Or am I hallucinating?
>>>> After several days of non-stop discussing bytes that must be
>>>> considered a possibility.)
>>> We do, and it's not been removed: the -U switch.
>>
>> As Guido alluded, the global switch is useless.  A per-module switch
>> something that could actually useful.  One nice advantage is that
>> you would write code that works the same with Jython (wrt to string
>> literals anyhow).
>
>The global switch is not useless. It's purpose is to test the
>standard library (or any other piece of Python code) for Unicode
>compatibility.
>
>Since we're not even close to such compatibility, I'm not sure
>how useful a per-module switch would be.

Just what Neil suggested: developers writing new code benefit from having the behavior which will ultimately be Python's default, rather than the behavior that is known to be destined for obsolescence.

Being able to turn this on per-module is useful for the same reason the rest of the future system is useful on a per-module basis.  It's easier to convert things incrementally than monolithicly.

Jean-Paul