[Python-Dev] PEP 383 update: utf8b is now the error handler

[Terry Reedy]

Martin v. Löwis wrote:

> Because utf8b (or, perhaps "UTF-8b") is the official name for this
> algorithm:
> http://hyperreal.org/~est/utf-8b/

Thank you for the link.  It starts:
"This directory contains a C implementation of a UTF-8b codec.
A Python codec based on it is provided as well."

'RTF-8b' consists, obviously, 'UTF-8' plus 'b', with the 'b' signifying 
a variation of or addition to UTF-8.  The 'b', and only the 'b', refers 
to the innovative error-handler that was added to the existing 'UTF-8' 
codec/algorithm.  The name of the combined whole is not the name of the 
part.

If you were incorporating the Python-wrapped utf-8b *codec* as a codec, 
which is what I once thought *because you used that name*, then calling 
it 'utf-8b' would be fine.  But you apparently instead proposed and 
implemented an *error-handler*, which seems to me to be something else, 
and which will not be specific to utf-8 but usable with any codec. 
Hence some of us think it should have a different name.

I gather that you lifted the error-handler part of the algorithm and 
propose to use it with *any* ascii-respecting codec.  I could claim that 
the 'official name' of that part is 'b', but I think we can find a 
better name.

Terry Jan Reedy