[Python-Dev] str() vs. unicode()

[Walter Dörwald]

Guido van Rossum wrote:

>[...]
> 
>>BTW, what about __repr__? Should this be allowed to return unicode 
>>objects? (currently it is, and uses PyUnicode_AsUnicodeEscapeString)
>>
> 
> But this is rarely what the caller expects, and it violates the
> guideline that repr() should return something that can be fed back to
> the parser.


I'd say this is a bug in the parser! >;)

> I'd rather change the rules to require that __repr__ and
> tp_repr return an 8-bit string at all times.


Sounds reasonable and again makes the implementation simpler
(as long as we're not in an all unicode world).

Bye,
    Walter Dörwald