[Python-Dev] PEP 383: Non-decodable Bytes in System Character Interfaces

[R. David Murray]

On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 at 21:21, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:
>> Yeah, but IIRC a complete set of bytes APIs doesn't exist yet in py3k.
>
> Define complete. I'm not aware of any interfaces wrt. file IO that are
> lacking, so which ones were you thinking of?
>
> Python doesn't currently provide a way to access environment variables
> and command line arguments as bytes. With the PEP, such a way would
> actually become available for applications that desire it.

Those are the two that I'm thinking of.

I think I understand your proposal better now after your example of
implementing listdir(bytes).  Putting it in the PEP would probably
be a good idea.  I personally don't have enough practice in actually
working with various encodings (or any understanding of unicode escapes)
to comment further.

--David