[Python-Dev] Python and the Unicode Character Database

[Terry Reedy]

On 11/28/2010 3:58 PM, Alexander Belopolsky wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 3:43 PM, Antoine Pitrou<solipsis at pitrou.net>  wrote:
> ..
>>> For example,
>>> I don't think that supporting
>>>
>>>>>> float('١٢٣٤.٥٦')
>>> 1234.56

Even if this is somehow an accident or something that someone snuck in, 
I think it a good idea that *users* be able to input amounts with their 
native digits. That is different from requiring *programmers* to write 
literals with euro-ascii-digits

>>> is more important than to assure users that once their program
>>> accepted some text as a number, they can assume that the text is
>>> ASCII.
>>
>> Why would they assume the text is ASCII?
>
> def deposit(self, amountstr):
>        self.balance += float(amountstr)
>        audit_log("Deposited: " + amountstr)

If the programmer want to assure ascii, he can produce a string, 
possible formatted, from the amount

depform = "Deposited: ${:14.2f}".format
def deposit(self, amountstr):
     amount = float(amountstr)
     self.balance += amount
     # audit_log("Deposited: " + str(amount) # simple version
     audit_log(depform(amount))

Given that amountstr could be something like '        182.33        ', I 
think programmer should plan to format it.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy