Python 2 ‘print’, coercing arguments to Unicode

[Ben Finney]

Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> writes:

> In Python 2.7, I am seeing this behaviour for ‘print’::
>
>     Python 2.7.10 (default, Sep 13 2015, 20:30:50)
>     [GCC 5.2.1 20150911] on linux2
>     Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>     >>> from __future__ import unicode_literals
>     >>> from __future__ import print_function
>     >>> import io
>     >>> print(None)
>     None
>     >>> print(None, file=io.StringIO())
>     Traceback (most recent call last):
>       File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>     TypeError: unicode argument expected, got 'str'
>
> So, although my string literals are now Unicode objects, apparently
> ‘print’ still coerces objects using the bytes type ‘str’.

To eliminate ‘from __future__ import print_function’ as a possible
factor, here is another demonstration without that::

    Python 2.7.10 (default, Sep 13 2015, 20:30:50) 
    [GCC 5.2.1 20150911] on linux2
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> from __future__ import unicode_literals
    >>> import sys
    >>> import io
    >>> print "foo"
    foo
    >>> print None
    None
    >>> sys.stdout = io.StringIO()
    >>> print "foo"
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
    TypeError: unicode argument expected, got 'str'
    >>> print None
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
    TypeError: unicode argument expected, got 'str'

So it appears that even a string literal, which is explicitly Unicode by
the above ‘from __future__ import unicode_literals’, is still being
coerced to a bytes ‘str’ object by ‘print’.

How can I convince ‘print’, everywhere throughout a module, that it
should coerce its arguments using ‘unicode’?

-- 
 \          “Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” —Donald |
  `\                                              Robert Perry Marquis |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney