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

["Martin v. Löwis"]

>> I don't understand what you're saying. py3k filenames are all
>> unicode, even on POSIX systems, 
> 
> 
> How is that possible on POSIX systems where the underlying file system 
> uses bytes for filenames?
> 
> If I write a piece of Python code:
> 
>     filename = 'some path/some name'
> 
> I might call it a filename, I might think of it as a filename, but it 
> *isn't*, it's a string in a Python program. It isn't a filename until 
> it hits the file system, and in POSIX systems that makes it bytes.

Python automatically encodes strings with the file system encoding
before passing them to the POSIX API.

Regards,
Martin