[Python-Dev] XML codec?

[Fred Drake]

On Nov 12, 2007, at 8:56 AM, Walter Dörwald wrote:
> It isn't "embedded". codecs.detect_xml_encoding() is callable without
> any problems (though not documented).

"Not documented" means not available, I think.

> Who would use such a function for what?

Being able to detect the encoding can be useful anytime you want  
information about a file, actually.  In particular, presenting  
encoding information in a user interface (yes, you can call that  
contrived, but some people want to be able to see such things, and for  
them it's a requirement).  If you want to parse the XML and re-encode,  
it's common to want to re-encode in the origin encoding; it's needed  
for that as well.  If you just want to toss the text into an editor,  
the encoding is also needed.  In that case, the codec approach *might*  
be acceptable (depending on the rest of the editor implementation),  
but the same re-encoding issue applies as well.

Simply, it's sometimes desired to know the encoding for purposes that  
don't require immediate decoding.  A function would be quite handing  
in these cases.


   -Fred

-- 
Fred Drake   <fdrake at acm.org>