Python and UTF-8

[Matthias Huening]

martin at v.loewis.de (Martin v. Loewis) wrote in 
news:m3itak5to0.fsf at mira.informatik.hu-berlin.de:

> 
> You have to know the encoding the data is currently, say
> current_encoding. Then, converting it into UTF-8, you write
> 
> data = unicode(data, current_encoding).encode('utf-8')
> 

Yes, but what if I don't know? 

I have been playing around with Unicode/Python/Tkinter, but I just don't 
get is... Seems like I need some help on Unicode...
Would there be a good tutorial or book on this topic which answers 
questions like:
How does Python handle Unicode-files?
How does sorting work with Unicode?
Can I use locales with Unicode (e.g. to sort words according to the 
German convention?) How?
How to use regular expressions with Unicode?
etc.

Thanks, Matthias