[Python-Dev] Bug #112265: Tkinter seems to treat everything as Latin 1
Tim Peters
tim_one@email.msn.com
Sat, 26 Aug 2000 17:14:37 -0400
>> UnicodeError: ASCII decoding error: ordinal not in range(128)
> btw, what the heck is an "ordinal"?
It's a technical term <wink>. But it's used consistently in Python, e.g.,
that's where the name of the builtin ord function comes from!
>>> print ord.__doc__
ord(c) -> integer
Return the integer ordinal of a one character string.
>>>
> ...
> how about an "ordinal number"? that is, "a number designating the
> place (as first, second, or third) occupied by an item in an
> ordered sequence".
Exactly. Each character has an arbitrary but fixed position in an arbitrary
but ordered sequence of all characters. This isn't hard.
> wouldn't "character" be easier to grok for mere mortals?
Doubt it -- they're already confused about the need to distinguish between a
character and its encoding, and the *character* is most certainly not "in"
or "out" of any range of integers.
> ...and isn't "range(128)" overly cute?
Yes.
> UnicodeError: ASCII decoding error: character not in range 0-127
As above, it makes no sense. How about compromising on
> UnicodeError: ASCII decoding error: ord(character) > 127
?