Issues with `codecs.register` and `codecs.CodecInfo` objects

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 12:55:31 -0400, Karl Knechtel wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> While attempting to make a wrapper for opening multiple types of
> UTF-encoded files (more on that later, in a separate post, I guess), I
> ran into some oddities with the `codecs` module, specifically to do with
> `.register` ing `CodecInfo` objects. I'd like to report a bug or
> something, but there are several intertangled issues here and I'm not
> really sure how to report it so I thought I'd open the discussion.
> Apologies in advance if I get a bit rant-y, and a warning that this is
> fairly long.
[...]

Yes, it's a strangely indirect API, and yes it looks like you have 
identified a whole bucket full of problems with it. And no, I don't know 
why that API was chosen.

Changing to a cleaner, more direct (sensible?) API would be a fairly big 
step. If you want to pursue this, the steps I recommend you take are:

1) understanding the reason for the old API (search the Internet 
   and particularly the python-dev at python.org archives);

2) have a plan for how to avoid breaking code that relies on the
   existing API;

3) raise the issue on python-ideas at python.org to gather feedback 
   and see how much opposition or support it is likely to get;
   they'll suggest whether a bug report is sufficient or if you'll
   need a PEP;

   http://www.python.org/dev/peps/


If you can provide a patch and a test suite, you will have a much better 
chance of pushing it through. If not, you are reliant on somebody else 
who can being interested enough to do the work.

And one last thing: any new functionality will simply *not* be considered 
for Python 2.x. Aim for Python 3.4, since the 2.x series is now in bug-
fix only maintenance mode and the 3.3 beta is no longer accepting new 
functionality, only bug fixes.


-- 
Steven