Comment on PEP 263 - Defining Python Source Code Encodings

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Martin" == Martin v Loewis <martin at v.loewis.de> writes:

    Martin> Indeed, that would be the case. Hopefully, few editors
    Martin> will silently *change* the encoding.

Sometimes you have no choice.  This is particularly the case with
ISO-8859-1 and the Euro, but could happen unexpectedly (to the user)
in many ways, especially with cut and paste.  Emacs, for example, will
handle this correctly, including requesting confirmation when the
encoding is about to be changed in order to prevent data corruption.

Unfortunately, it does _not_ fix up the coding cookie, and there is
significant opposition to fixing up the coding cookie on the Emacs
development list.  (XEmacs will support fixing up the coding cookie in
some sane way.)

    Martin> Also, I question that the encoding is meta-data: this
    Martin> information affects the meaning of the Python program just
    Martin> as any other program statement.

Of course it's meta-data.  Heck, even HTML calls it that.<wink>


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