[Python-Dev] please consider changing --enable-unicode default to ucs4

[Zooko O'Whielacronx]

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 8:27 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>
> What "binaries" are you talking about?

I mean extension modules with native code, which means .so shared
library files on unix.

> AFAIK, C extensions should fail loading when they have the wrong UCS2/4 setting.

That would be an improvement!  Unfortunately we instead get mysterious
misbehavior of the module, e.g.:

http://bugs.python.org/setuptools/msg309
http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/ticket/704#comment:5

> For information, all Mandriva versions I've used until now have had their
> Python's built with UCS2 (maxunicode == 65535).

Thank you for the data point.  This means that binary extension
modules built on Mandriva can't be ported to Ubuntu or vice versa.
However, is this an argument for or against changing the default
setting to UCS4?  Changing the default setting wouldn't interfere with
Mandriva's decision, right?

Regards,

Zooko