Python converts my 8-bit strings

[Fredrik Lundh]

gradha at iname.com wrote:
> When I for example fed string.split with an 8 bit string, all the 8 bit
> characters get converted into what looks like utf-8 codes.

you're probably confusing the string escaping done by
the "repr" function with utf-8 encoding.

    >>> a = "åäö" # 8-bit characters

    >>> a # uses repr to print the result
    '\206\204\224' # octal escapes for åäö

    >>> print a # prints the actual contents
    åäö

    >>> a.split("ä")
    ['\206', '\224'] # uses repr for each list item

    >>> for item in a.split("ä"):
    ...    print item # prints each item as is
    ...
    å
    ö

Cheers /F