{Spam?} [Tutor] IDLE vs. Python Command Line

[Jeff Shannon]

Bob Gailer wrote:

> At 08:04 PM 6/17/2004, Dragonfirebane at aol.com wrote:
> 
>> when i type:
>> ##
>> >>>import string
>> >>>string.letters
>> ##
>>
>> in IDLE, i get:
>> ##
>> 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz\x83\x8a\x8c\x8e\x9a\x9c\x9e\x9f\xaa\xb5\xba\xc0\xc1\xc2\xc3\xc4\xc5\xc6\xc7\xc8\xc9\xca\xcb\xcc\xcd\xce\xcf\xd0\xd1\xd2\xd3\xd4\xd5\xd6\xd8\xd9\xda\xdb\xdc\xdd\xde\xdf\xe0\xe1\xe2\xe3\xe4\xe5\xe6\xe7\xe8\xe9\xea\xeb\xec\xed\xee\xef\xf0\xf1\xf2\xf3\xf4\xf5\xf6\xf8\xf9\xfa\xfb\xfc\xfd\xfe\xff' 
>> ##
>>
>> but when i do it on the Python Command Line, i get:
>> ##
>> 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'
>> ##
> 
> I can confirm that behavior, but not explain it.

My hunch is that this is Unicode (or at least Locale) related.  The 
"extra" characters reported under IDLE are all letters that are not 
part of the standard American English character set, and are thus not 
in ASCII.  I'm presuming that the command line is reporting the ASCII 
letters, and that IDLE is reporting a non-ASCII superset.  Whether 
this is an alternate codepage or a Unicode character set would 
presumably depend upon the O.P.'s settings.  (I don't have any grasp 
on why IDLE would behave differently than the command line, though; 
it's probably due to some sort of setting in IDLE, but I wouldn't know 
where to look.)

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International