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[QUOTE="Marko Rauhamaa, post: 5159543"]
I actually think the problem has little to do with Unicode. Text is an
abstract data type just like any class. If I have an object (say, a
subprocess or a dictionary) in memory, I don't expect the object to have
any existence independently of the Python virtual machine. I have the
same feeling about Py3 strings: they only exist inside the Python
virtual machine.

An abstract object like a subprocess or dictionary justifies its
existence through its behaviour (its quacking). Now, do strings quack or
are they silent? I guess if you are writing a word processor they might
quack to you. Otherwise, they are just an esoteric storage format.

What I'm saying is that strings definitely have an important application
in the human interface. However, I feel strings might be overused in the
Py3 API. Case in point: are pathnames bytes objects or strings? The
linux position is that they are bytes objects. Py3 supports both
interpretations seemingly throughout:

open(b"/bin/ls")    vs    open("/bin/ls")
os.path.join(b"a", b"b")    vs    os.path.join("a", "b")

Marko
[/QUOTE]

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