Unicode - Pythonwin and Access

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Mark Hammond wrote:
> 
> Martin von Loewis wrote:
> 
> >
> >> Also, I am accessing Access DBs through the DAO extensions in
> >> Winpython. For some reason, I am getting my request to the database
> >> as unicode strings, rather than normal strings. I am completely lost
> >> here, also. Any hint?
> >
> >
> > Well, what is the problem with getting Unicode strings? As far as I
> > know DAO is *specified* to use Unicode strings internally, and it was
> > only lack of proper Unicode support that you did not get Unicode
> > strings before.
> 
> Exactly.  COM (and therefore DAO) is Unicode based, and in Python 2.0
> this is not hidden from you.
> 
> Possibly-it-still-should-be ly,

Could you provide some details into your experience with using
Unicode in database work ?

I am curious, because I will be integrating Unicode in mxODBC
too -- it is just not clear to me how to add this feature, since
I wouldn't want to break existing code out there.

Some options I have thought up:
1. Use new subpackage names for packages which support Unicode
2. Make Unicode support optional on a per-connection/-cursor
   basis.
3. Add new .fetchXXX() APIs which return Unicode.
4. Go Unicode all the way and forget the past ;-)

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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