[Python-Dev] Python and the Unicode Character Database

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Nick Coghlan wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 1:39 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:
>> I agree that Python should make it easy for the programmer to get
>> numerical values of native numeric strings, but it's not at all clear
>> to me that there is any point to having float() recognize them by
>> default.
> 
> Indeed, as someone else suggested earlier in the thread, supporting
> non-ASCII digits sounds more like a job for the locale module than for
> the builtin types.
> 
> Deprecating non-ASCII support in the latter, while ensuring it is
> properly supported in the former sounds like a better way forward than
> maintaining the status quo (starting in 3.3 though, with the first
> beta just around the corner, we don't want to be monkeying with this
> in 3.2)

Since when do we only support certain Unicode features in specific
locales ?

If we would go down that road, we would also have to disable other
Unicode features based on locale, e.g. whether to apply non-ASCII
case mappings, what to consider whitespace, etc.

We don't do that for a good reason: Unicode is supposed to be
universal and not limited to a single locale.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

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