> 3) Most text files have no header specifying the encoding anyway. How > should the programm/programmer know? And often he does not need to > know anyway.
What? Off COURSE texts have no header stating the encoding! And it is the programmer's responsibility to know what a text's encoding is. So do not ignore HTTP headers when downloading or other means of communicating the encoding. That is the whole problem with texts represented as strings. A string is a free sequence of bytes, whereas a text is a free sequence of characters WITH AN ENCODING. This may be a default encoding, but you must still know which one that is. That is your JOB as a programmer. Putting the encoding as some sort of header in the string itself is the worst "solution" that has ever been proposed. Do you put the only key to a safe inside the very same safe and lock it? Then why do you have to hack a string (is is not a text as it is not accompanied by an encoding) to see what encoding is hidden inside? Ask yourself: would the following "headers" ever work (each given in the stated encoding off course)? <meta http-equiv="Content-type" Value="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta http-equiv="Content-type" Value="text/html;charset=utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="Content-type" Value="text/html;charset=utf-7"> <meta http-equiv="Content-type" Value="text/html;charset=utf-16"> <meta http-equiv="Content-type" Value="text/html;charset=utf-32"> <meta http-equiv="Content-type" Value="text/html;charset=ebcdic"> -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
