[Python-Dev] PEP 460: allowing %d and %f and mojibake

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 10:16:17AM -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> Hm. It is beginning to sound more and more flawed. I also worry that
> it will bring back the nightmare of data-dependent UnicodeError back.
> E.g. this (from tests/basic.py):
> 
>     def test_asciistr_will_not_accept_codepoints_above_127(self):
>         self.assertRaises(ValueError, asciistr, 'Schrödinger')
> 
> looks reasonable enough when you assume asciistr() is always used with
> a literal as argument -- but I suspect that plenty of people would
> misunderstand its purpose and write asciistr(s) as a "clever" way to
> turn a string into something that's compatible with both bytes and
> strings... :-(

I am one of those people. I've been trying to keep on top of this 
enormous multiple-thread discussion, and although I haven't read every 
single post in its entirety, I thought I understand the purpose of 
asciistr was exactly that, to produce something that was compatible with 
both bytes and strings.


-- 
Steven