[Python-Dev] cc: "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de>

["Martin v. Löwis"]

>> I would likely close such a report as "works for me" (after testing
>> it does - it did when I last ran it, which was before the release
>> of Python 2.5).
> 
> I think that you will find that you are using a non-standard
> environment and set of Python sources.

Please trust me that I didn't. See below.

> Well, here are a selection of the issues that I found:
> 
> The Makefile includes the command:
>     ncftpget -R ftp.unicode.org . Public/MAPPINGS
> Not merely is ncftpget not a standard utility, the current mappings
> are no longer at that location.  Indeed, I can see nothing useful in
> that directory at present, though I haven't searched it in depth!

Ah, the makefile. I don't think you use it create the Unicode database.

It's only good for generating the codecs (Lib/encodings)

AFAICT, the mappings are still where they always were: at the
location given in the Makefile. (e.g.
ftp://ftp.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/ISO8859/8859-15.TXT
)

For generating the Unicode database, you need to download the
files manually

> Looking through www.unicode.org, I could find the relevant files
> for 5.0.0, but for no other version.  No, I am NOT going to type
> in over a megabyte of data from the PDF!

And nobody asks you to. Just use

http://www.unicode.org/Public/4.1.0/ucd/

(also available through ftp)

Did you really believe the Unicode consortium doesn't have the
old versions of the character database online? Do you think
they are complete fools?

> makeunicodedata.py has a reference to the Unicode 3.2 files, but
> they are not present in the standard distribution, the Makefile
> doesn't fetch them, and I can't find them.

Googling for "unicode 3.2 ucd" gives me

http://unicode.org/Public/3.2-Update/

as the top hit (of course, you have to know that they call
the character database "ucd" to invoke that query).

> makeunicodedata.py refers to (for example) UnicodeData.txt and
> Modules/unicodedata_db.h as such, which rather requires it to be
> run in a particular directory.  I can find nothing in any file
> even referring to this.

Yes, that's something you have to know. Put the files into the
root directory of the source tree, then run makeunicodedata.py

> And, of course, it SHOULD be possible to upgrade the Unicode data
> without having to change version of Python!

Well.

Regards,
Martin