python 2.7 and unicode (one more time)

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info>:

> In Python, we have Unicode strings and byte strings.

No, you don't. You have strings and bytes:

  Textual data in Python is handled with str objects, or strings.
  Strings are immutable sequences of Unicode code points. String
  literals are written in a variety of ways: [...]

  <URL: https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#text-sequence-typ
  e-str>

  The core built-in types for manipulating binary data are bytes and bytearray.

  <URL: https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#binary-sequence-t
  ypes-bytes-bytearray-memoryview


Equivalently, I wouldn't mind "character strings" vs "byte strings".
Unicode strings is not wrong but the technical emphasis on Unicode is as
strange as a "tire car" or "rectangular door" when "car" and "door" are
what you usually mean.


Marko