eval and unicode

[Laszlo Nagy]

How can I specify encoding for the built-in eval function? Here is the 
documentation:

http://docs.python.org/lib/built-in-funcs.html

It tells that the "expression" parameter is a string. But tells nothing 
about the encoding. Same is true for: execfile, eval and compile.

The basic problem:

- expressions need to be evaluated by a program
- expressions are managed through a web based interface. The browser 
supports UTF-8, the database also supports UTF-8. The user needs to be 
able to enter string expressions in different languages, and store them 
in the database
- expressions are for filtering emails, and the emails can contain any 
character in any encoding

I tried to use eval with/without unicode strings and it worked. Example:

 >>> eval( u'"徹底したコスト削減 ÁÍŰŐÜÖÚÓÉ трирова"' ) == eval( '"徹底し 
たコスト削減 ÁÍŰŐÜÖÚÓÉ трирова"' )
True

The above test was made on Unbuntu Linux and gnome-terminal. 
gnome-terminal does support unicode. What would happen under Windows?

I'm also confused how it is related to PEP 0263. I always get a warning 
when I try to enter '"徹底したコスト削減 ÁÍŰŐÜÖÚÓÉ трирова"' in a source 
file without "# -*- coding: " specified. Why is it not the same for 
eval? Why it is not raising an exception (or why the encoding does not 
need to be specified?)

Thanks,

Laszlo