The above at least applies to Linux. I'm not sure about windows - I *know* they have wide-char/unicode support, but I'm not sure how exactly that is exposed via the python file apis
Just found this: http://www.amk.ca/python/howto/unicode there is a seciton about filenames and OSes in there, you should read it. Diez -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list