[Pythonmac-SIG] CF module oddity

[Jack Jansen]

On dinsdag, mei 6, 2003, at 18:27 Europe/Amsterdam, Ronald Oussoren 
wrote:
>> CFStringCreateWithCharacters expects a unicode string. The Python 
>> format specifier for unicode strings accepts "normal" strings, and 
>> interpretes them as a binary data stream containing UTF16 unicode > 
>> data.
>
> Very usefull :-( Is this documented anywhere? The documentation in the 
> section "Extracting Parameters in Extension Functions" of "Extending 
> and Embedding the Python Interpreter" does note mention this 
> misfeature.

I'm not sure whether it's documented. If it isn't please file a bug 
report.

And, about this being a misfeature: in some cases it definitely is, but 
in others it's definitely a feature. It really depends on whether you 
want to just pass raw data through (in which case it's a feature) or 
whether the data is interpreted (think filenames and such), in which 
case you'd much rather have the 8-bit string converted to unicode with 
the current default encoding.
--
- Jack Jansen        <Jack.Jansen@oratrix.com>        
http://www.cwi.nl/~jack -
- If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman -