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

[Cameron Simpson]

On 26Apr2009 23:39, Glenn Linderman <v+python at g.nevcal.com> wrote:
[...snip...]
> There are still issues regarding how Windows and POSIX programs that are  
> sharing cross-mounted file systems might communicate file names between  
> each other, which is not at all clear from the PEP.  If this is an  
> insoluble or un-addressed issue, it should be stated.  (It is probably  
> insoluble, due to there being multiple ways that the cross-mounted file  
> systems might translate names; but if there are, can we learn something  
> from the rules the mounting systems use, to be compatible with (one of)  
> them, or not.

I'd say that's out of scope. A windows filesystem mounted on a UNIX host
should probably be mounted with a mapping to translate the Windows
Unicode names into whatever the sysadmin deems the locally most apt
byte encoding. But sys.getfilesystemencoding() is based on the current user's
locale settings, which need not be the same.

> Together with your change to avoid using PUA characters, and the rule  
> suggested by MRAB in another branch of this thread, of treating  
> half-surrogates as invalid byte sequences may avoid the data puns I'm  
> concerned about.
>
> It is not clear how half-surrogate characters would be displayed, when  
> the user prints or displays such a file name string.  It would seem that  
> programs that display file names to users might still have issues with  
> such; an escaping mechanism that uses displayable characters would have  
> an advantage there.

Wouldn't any escaping mechanism that uses displayable characters
require visually mangling occurences of those characters that
legitimately occur in the original?
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/