[Zope3-dev] i18n, unicode, and the underline

[Guido van Rossum]

>   i am assuming "s" is logically equivalent to u"s"   

Correct.  They even compare equal in Python:

  >>> u"foo" == "foo"
  True
  >>> 

> from what i understand the po files contain these strings as indexes and 
> so  does it matter if the index is a unicode string or an ascii string ?

No, because they compare equal, Unicode keys and ASCII strings are
completely equivalent:

  >>> d = {"foo": 42, u"bar": "hello"}
  >>> d[u"foo"]
  42
  >>> d["bar"]
  'hello'
  >>> 

> at run time _() should simply substitute whatever is in the po database 
> ?  (i know there is no such thing as a dumb question ;)

The only time you get in trouble is when a non-Unicode string contains
non-ASCII characters.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)