[issue3187] os.listdir can return byte strings

[Guido van Rossum]

Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> added the comment:

The proper work-around is for the app to pass bytes into os.listdir();
then it will return bytes.  It would be nice if open() etc. accepted
bytes (as well as strings of course), at least on Unix, but not
absolutely necessary -- the app could also just know the right encoding.

I see two reasonable alternatives for what os.listdir() should return
when the input is a string and one of the filenames can't be decoded:
either omit it from the output list; or use errors='replace' in the
encoding.  Failing the entire os.listdir() call is not acceptable, and
neither is returning a mixture of str and bytes instances.

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nosy: +gvanrossum

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<http://bugs.python.org/issue3187>
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