2.3 encoding parsing bug

[Edward K. Ream]

The documentation for encoding lines at

C:\Python23\Doc\Python-Docs-2.3.1\whatsnew\section-encodings.html

states:

"Encodings are declared by including a specially formatted comment in the
first or second line of the source file."

In fact, contrary to the implication, the Python 2.3 parser does not look
for lines of the form:

# -*- coding: <encoding> -*-

For example, Python improperly scans the following line for an encoding

#@+leo-ver=4-encoding=iso-8859-1.

and reports that iso-8859-1. (note trailing dot) is an invalid encoding!

The workaround for my app is to precede this line with the following line:

# -*- coding: iso-8859-1 -*-

This makes Python 2.3 happy.

To make myself perfectly clear: Python has absolutely no right to complain
about comment lines that do not have the form:

# -*- coding: <encoding> -*-

Edward
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Edward K. Ream   email:  edreamleo at charter.net
Leo: Literate Editor with Outlines
Leo: http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html
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