[Python-Dev] directive statement (PEP 244)

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

Guido van Rossum writes:
 > Well, I believe that for XML everybody (editors and other processors)
 > looks in the same place, right?

  It also assumes a pretty strict set of expected characters:  If you
don't have UTF-8, you have:

	[byte-order-mark] "<?xml " [version-spec] [encoding-spec]
				   [standalog-spec] "?>"

  Basically, the encoding can be discovered very easily given an
assumption about legal content.  Once that assumption doesn't hold,
the encoding can't be discovered reliably.
  We could probably make a pretty reasonable statement of how to
auto-detect enough so that Python files could have an encoded
declaration (however we spell it), but it's hard to beat the
assumption of mandated structure.  (Some assumption, huh? ;)


  -Fred

-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.  <fdrake at acm.org>
PythonLabs at Digital Creations