copx wrote:
> For some reason Python (on Windows) doesn't use the system's default
> character set and that's a serious problem for me.
> I need to process German textfiles (containing umlauts and other > 7bit
> ASCII characters) and generally work with strings which need to be processed
> using the local encoding (I need to display the text using a Tk-based GUI
> for example). The only solution I managed to find was converting between
> unicode and latin-1 all the time (the textfiles aren't unicode, the output
> of the program isn't supposed to be unicode either). Everything worked fine
> until I tried to run the program on a Windows 9x machine.. It seems that
> Python on Win9x doesn't really support unicode (IIRC Win9x doesn't have real
> unicode support so that's not suprising).
> Is it possible to tell Python to use an 8bit charset (latin-1 in my case)
> for textfile and string processing by default?
>
> copx
1. Your description of your problem is extremely vague. If you were to
supply a minimal script that "works" [on what platform?? what version of
Python??], with a description of what you understand by "works", and
what happens differently when you run that script on a Win9x box [for
what value(s) of x?? what version of Python??], we might be able to help
you. N.B. somewhere near the top of the script you should have something
like:
import sys
print "Python version:", sys.version
print "platform:", sys.platform
print "default encoding:", sys.getdefaultencoding()
try:
print "Windows version:", sys.getwindowsversion()
except AttributeError:
print "sys.getwindowsversion not available"
2. You should read this:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
3. You should not rely on a crutch like a default encoding, especially
one obtained by a kludge like sitecustomize.py. If your app expects to
receive data in encoding x and send data in encoding y, these facts are
properties of the application and the data, NOT the box you are running
on. If you had a requirement to read MacCyrillic from a Classic Mac and
write KOI8 for consumption on a Windows PC, you should be able to do it
on a SPARC Solaris box in Timbuktu or Walla Walla, Wa., without having
to fiddle with site-wide configuration.
4. AFAIK, support for Unicode is provided by Python with no assistance
from the operating system. The multitudinous deficiencies in Win9x
should have no bearing on the problem. Have you tried to run your
program on a Win2K or WinXP box?
HTH,
John
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