[Python-Dev] Docs for string methods ?

[Fredrik Lundh]

mal wrote:
> > > > talking about string methods: how about providing an
> > > > "encode" method for 8-bit strings too?
> > >
> > > I've tossed that idea around a few times too... it could
> > > have the same interface as the Unicode one (without default
> > > encoding though). The only problem is that there are currently
> > > no codecs which could deal with strings on input.
> > 
> > imho, a consistent interface is more important than a truly
> > optimal implementation (string are strings yada yada).  or in
> > other words,
> > 
> >     def encode(self, encoding):
> >         if encoding is close enough:
> >             return self
> >         return unicode(self).encode(encoding)
> > 
> > ought to be good enough for now.

/snip/

> Note that 'abc'.encode('utf8') would fail because the UTF-8
> codec expects Unicod on input to its encode method (hmm, perhaps
> I ought to make the method use the 'u' parser marker instead
> of 'U' -- that way, the method would auto-convert the 'abc'
> string to Unicode using the default encoding and then proceed
> to encode it in UTF-8).

sorry, I wasn't clear: the "def encode" snippet above should be
a string method, not a function.

"abc".encode("utf8") would be "return self" if the default encoding
is "ascii" or "utf8", and "return unicode("abc").encode("utf8")" other-
wise.

cheers /F