Python default encoding would be _really_ useful in Unicode documentation

[develbob@…]

While upgrading Django we collided upon a numberous amount of Unicode errors only to find, after looking for a long time, that there was a simple and easy way out; by setting the default encoding for Python. This can simple be done by dropping the following snipplet somewhere in the Python path:

# sitecustomize.py
# this file can be anywhere in your Python path,
# but it usually goes in ${pythondir}/lib/site-packages/
import sys
sys.setdefaultencoding('iso-8859-1')

We feel that it would be really useful to mention this in the Unicode page of the Django documentation. The script itself we have found on ​http://www.diveintopython.org/xml_processing/unicode.html.

[Armin Ronacher]

Ugh. That causes *serious* problems. Guess why site.py *removes* setdefaultencoding...

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

Firstly, this is not a good idea. It's not recommended by the Python maintainers, for a start. I consider it a bug in "Dive Into Python" that it's recommended there, since as soon as you start making changes like this, your code becomes non-portable.

Secondly, this isn't a bug in Django.