[Python-ideas] Query available codecs and error handlers

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 09:33:47AM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> On 29.08.2014 07:45, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > Unless I am badly misinformed, there is no way to programmatically check 
> > what codecs and error handlers are available. I propose two functions in 
> > the codecs module:
> > 
> > get_codecs()
> > get_error_handlers()
> > 
> > which each return a set of the available codec, or error handler, names.
> 
> Question is: how would you implement these ?
> 
> The codec registry uses lookup functions to find codecs, so we'd
> have to extend those lookup functions to also support reporting
> known installed codecs.

Arrgggh, you're right -- I've been working on a wrong assumption. I had 
forgotten that the codecs.register function takes a function, not a 
name.

I always forgot that, because it's such a strange and unhelpful API 
compared to, say, a mapping of name:codec. It's probably water under the 
bridge now, but is there any documentation for why this API was used in 
the first place?



-- 
Steven