Py3.3 unicode literal and input()

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 1:44 AM, jmfauth <wxjmfauth at gmail.com> wrote:
> I do not see why the semantic may vary differently
> in code source or in an interactive interpreter,
> esp. if Python allow it!

When you're asking for input, you usually aren't looking for code. It
doesn't matter about string literal formats, because you don't need to
delimit it. In code, you need to make it clear to the interpreter
where your string finishes, and that's traditionally done with quote
characters:

name = "Chris Angelico"   # this isn't part of the string, because the
two quotes mark off the ends of it

And you can include characters in your literals that you don't want in
your source code:

bad_chars = "\x00\x1A\x0A"    # three characters NUL, SUB, LF

Everything about raw strings, Unicode literals, triple-quoted strings,
etc, etc, etc, is just variants on these two basic concepts. The
interpreter needs to know what you mean.

With input, though, the end of the string is defined in some other way
(such as by the user pushing Enter). The interpreter knows without any
extra hints where it's to stop parsing. Also, there's no need to
protect certain characters from getting into your code. It's a much
easier job for the interpreter, which translates to being much simpler
for the user: just type what you want and hit Enter. Quote characters
have no meaning.

Chris Angelico