string.encode on HP-UX

[Richard Townsend]

Using Python-2.3.4 on HP-UX11i, the following code:

import locale
loc = locale.setlocal e(locale.LC_ALL )
print 'locale =', loc
loc = locale.nl_langi nfo(locale.CODE SET)
print 'locale =', loc
print 'hello'.encode( loc, 'replace')

produces:

locale = C C C C C C
locale = roman8
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test_locale.py ", line 13, in ?
print 'hello'.encode( loc, 'replace')
LookupError: unknown encoding: roman8
[The same code on SUSE 9.1 doesn't raise an exception].

Should I be able to pass the value returned by nl_langinfo() to the
string.encode call?

Similar code is used by wxGlade and this exception prevents it from
running.

Does anybody know how to fix this on HP-UX?

--
Richard Townsend

[Richard Townsend]

In article <Pi************ *************** ***********@ccc 2.wpi.edu>,
Christopher T King <sq******@WPI.E DU> writes

Oops, I had only tested it at the prompt :P I had assumed sitecustomize.p y
was run after everything was set up.

This code uses a more defined interface for altering the codecs registry,
uses 'ascii' instead of 'latin_1' (to prevent some confusion), and
I've actually tested it in sitecustomize.p y:

import codecs

def roman8(n):
if n=='roman8':
return codecs.lookup(' ascii')

codecs.registe r(roman8)

This achieves the same effect as the aliases trick (which I'm surprised
didn't work for you at the prompt), but is less tricksy and should
therefore work better.

Hi Christopher,

Thanks for your new suggestion. I have tested it on HP-UX and it doesn't
raise the exception anymore.

regards,
Richard

--
Richard Townsend

[Richard Townsend]

In article <cd********@new ton.cc.rl.ac.uk >, Richard Brodie
<R.******@rl.ac .uk> writes

I've put what should be a proper codec as a patch on SF. Really needs
testing on HP-UX though....

Hi Richard,

I copied your hp_roman.py file to ../lib/python2.3/encodings and added
the line

'roman8' : 'hp_roman'

to aliases.py and string.encode(' roman8') now runs without raising an
exception.

I called string.printabl e.encode('roman 8') and the returned string
matches string.printabl e.

Are there any other tests you want me to do with this on HP-UX?

--
Richard Townsend

[Martin v. Löwis]

Richard Townsend wrote:

Should I be able to pass the value returned by nl_langinfo() to the
string.encode call?

I believe all of "yes", "no", and "perhaps not" are valid answers. Yes,
it is intentional that the strings returned by nl_langinfo are
understood as codec names. However, the string is returned from the OS,
and the codec is provided by Python, so it is perhaps not accepted.

But no, you should never ever invoce string.encode with a character
encoding. Instead, you should use string.decode to use encodings in
a meaningful way. It is an unfortunate "feature" that string.encode
is available and does "something" .

Regards,
Martin