Unicode questions

[Seebs]

On 2010-10-25, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
> In message <mailman.31.1287517442.2218.python-list at python.org>, Petite 
> Abeille wrote:
>> Characters vs. Bytes

> And why do certain people insist on referring to bytes as ???octets????

One common reason is that there have been machines on which "bytes" were
not 8 bits.  In particular, the usage of "byte" as "the smallest addressible
storage" has been rather firmly ensconced in the C spec, so people used to
that are likely aware that, on a machine where the smallest directly
addressible chunk of space is 16 bits, it's quite likely that char is 16
bits, and thus by definition a "byte" is 16 bits, and if you want an octet,
you have to extract it from a byte.

-s
-- 
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