[Python-Dev] PEP 383: Non-decodable Bytes in System Character Interfaces

[R. David Murray]

On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 at 13:29, Benjamin Peterson wrote:
> 2009/4/22 Dirkjan Ochtman <dirkjan at ochtman.nl>:
>> On 22/04/2009 14:20, glyph at divmod.com wrote:
>>>
>>> -1. On UNIX, character data is not sufficient to represent paths. We
>>> must, must, must continue to have a simple bytes interface to these
>>> APIs. Covering it up in layers of obscure encoding hacks will not make
>>> the problem go away, it will just make it harder to understand.
>>
>> As a hg developer, I have to concur. Keeping bytes-based APIs intact would
>> make porting hg to py3k much, much easier. You may be able to imagine that
>> dealing with paths correctly cross-platform on a VCS is a major PITA, and
>> py3k is currently not helping the situation.
>
> You're concerns are valid, but I don't see anything in the PEP about
> removing the bytes APIs.

Yeah, but IIRC a complete set of bytes APIs doesn't exist yet in py3k.

--David