[Python-3000] [Python-Dev] New proposition for Python3 bytes filename issue

[Jack Jansen]

On  1-Oct-2008, at 00:32 , Martin v. Löwis wrote:

>
>> How does windows (and Python on windows) handle NFC versus NFD  
>> issues?
>
> That's left to the application.
>
>> Can I have two files called "ümlaut.txt", one in NFD and one NFC  
>> form?
>
> Yes, you can. It sounds confusing, but only in a theoretical way. You
> never have combining characters on Windows (at least, I don't). The
> keyboard input defaults to NFC, and users normally don't type file
> names, anyways, except when creating the files - later, they just use
> the mouse to indicate what file they want to act on.
>
>> And are both of those representable on the Python side (i.e. can they
>> both be returned from listdir() and passed to open())?
>
> Certainly!
>
>> CIf I compare
>> these two filenames, do they compare differently?
>
> Certainly!

Actually, that all sounds pretty non-confusing to me:-)

So, normal users will always have the one form, and if by chance they  
get the other form they can still use the file. Also from Python, even  
when doing listdir() and then open(), everything will work just as  
expected. That there are two files that have a similar visual  
representation is not too bad, the same happens with ellipses versus  
dot-dot-dot and many other cases.

Which means the only problem area left is unix filesystems (whether on  
Linux or mounted remotely on MacOS or whatever), where filenames are  
really byte strings with only / and nul illegal.



--
Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma  
Goldman


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