LANG, locale, unicode, setup.py and Debian packaging

[Donn]

> No. It may use replacement characters (i.e. a question mark, or an empty
> square box), but if you don't see such characters, then the terminal has
> successfully decoded the file names. Whether it also correctly decoded
> them is something for you to check (i.e. do they look right?)
Okay.

So, the picture I get is:
*If* my locale *happens* to be the right one then the filename will appear 
properly. If it does not cover that file, then that filename will appear 
with ? marks in the name.
Because I use en_ZA.utf8 it's doing a very good job of decoding a wide variety 
of filenames and therefore I rarely see ? characters.

What happens if there is a filename that cannot be represented in it's 
entirety? i.e. every character is 'replaced'. Does it simply vanish, or does 
it appear as "?????????" ? :)

I spent an hour trying to find a single file on the web that did *not* have 
(what seemed like) ascii characters in it and failed. Even urls on Japanese 
websites use western characters ( a tcp/ip issue I suspect). I was hoping to 
find a filename in Kanji (?) ending in .jpg or something so that I could 
download it and see what my system (and Python) made of it.

Thanks again,
\d

-- 
"Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators."
-- Richard Dawkins

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