portable unicode literals

[Ulrich Eckhardt]

Hi!

I need a little nudge in the right direction, as I'm misunderstanding
something concerning string literals in Python 2 and 3. In Python 2.7,
b'' and '' are byte strings, while u'' is a unicode literal. In Python
3.2, b'' is a byte string and '' is a unicode literal, while u'' is a
syntax error.

This actually came as a surprise to me, I assumed that using b'' I could
portably create a byte string (which is true) and using u'' I could
portably create a unicode string (which is not true). This feature would
help porting code between both versions. While this is a state I can
live with, I wonder what the rationale for this is.

!puzzled thanks

Uli

[Steven D'Aprano]

It was a mistake that is corrected in Python 3.3.

You can now use u'' to create Unicode literals in both 2.x and 3.3 or
better. This is a feature only designed for porting code though: you
shouldn't use u'' in new code not intended for 2.x.


--
Steven

[Dave Angel]

Python 3.3 added that syntax, for easier porting. You can now use
u"xyz" for a unicode string in both 2.x and 3.3

--

DaveA

[Alex Strickland]

On 2012/10/15 03:05 PM, Ulrich Eckhardt wrote:

> This actually came as a surprise to me, I assumed that using b'' I could
> portably create a byte string (which is true) and using u'' I could
> portably create a unicode string (which is not true). This feature would
> help porting code between both versions. While this is a state I can
> live with, I wonder what the rationale for this is.
>
> !puzzled thanks

u'' is legal in 3.3 again.

--
Regards
Alex

[Serhiy Storchaka]

from __future__ import unicode_literals

And now you can portable use b'' for a byte string and '' for a unicode
string. When you will drop Python 2 support then just remove import from
__future__.

[Duncan Booth]

and if you want it to work in 3.1 and 3.2 there is the uprefix import hook:
https://bitbucket.org/vinay.sajip/uprefix


--
Duncan Booth http://kupuguy.blogspot.com