IDLE with Japanese locale (was: RELEASED: Python 2.3a2)

[SUZUKI Hisao]

Kirill Simonov wrote:
> * SUZUKI Hisao <suzuki611 at oki.com>:
> > > Python 2.3a2 is the second (and likely last) alpha release of Python
> > > 2.3.  Much improved since the first alpha, chockfull of things you'd
> > > like to check out:
> > > 
> > >   http://www.python.org/2.3/
> > 
> > If you install it cleanly on Windows in Japanese locale, you
> > cannot even start up the IDLE.  Perhaps you cannot do it also in
> > Chinese and Korean locales.
> 
> IDLE has not worked with non-latin1 encodings since the 2.0 release
> (when Unicode support was introduced :/).
> 
> You may try idlefork (http://idlefork.sourceforge.net/) with
> the patches #615312 and #682347.

Thank you.  The patch #615312 seems to be already incorporated
into Python 2.3a IDLE.

However, the problem here is more basic.  The codec for the
locale ('cp932' for Japanese Windows) is not provided in that
name.  It makes the locale mechanism useless.

But that codec is always provided in each Windows, and you can
use it in Python as 'mbcs', you know.  My patch just makes an
alias of 'mbcs'.  It is so general that I expect it will work
not only in Japan but also in other countries.

-- SUZUKI Hisao