Problem: the standard C character handling functions from ctype.h 
(isalpha, isdigit, isxdigit, isspace, toupper, tolower, etc.) are locale 
aware, but for almost all uses CPython needs locale-unaware versions of 
these.

There are various solutions in the current source:

- there's a file Include/bytes_methods.h which provides suitable 
ISDIGIT/ISALPHA/... macros, but also undefines the standard functions.
As it is, it can't be included in Python.h since that would break
3rd party code that includes Python.h and also uses isdigit.

- some files have their own solution:  Python/pystrtod.c defines
its own (probably inefficient) ISDIGIT and ISSPACE macros.

- in some places the standard C functions are just used directly (and 
possibly incorrectly).  A gotcha here is that one has to remember to use 
Py_CHARMASK to avoid errors on some platforms.  (See issue 3633 for an 
example.)

It would be nice to clean all this up, and have one central, efficient, 
easy-to-use set of Py_ISDIGIT/Py_ISALPHA ... locale-independent macros (or 
functions) that could be used safely throughout the Python source.

I concur. I've also been bitten by forgetting Py_CHARMASK, so a single
version that took this into account (and was locale-unaware) would be
welcome.

In private mail I'd mentioned that if these are functions, they should
take int. But I now think that's incorrect, and they should take char or
unsigned char. I think the standard C functions take int because they
also allow EOF. I think the Py_ versions should allow only characters
and not allow EOF. Py_CHARMASK already enforces this, anyway, with
likely undefined results.

Also, see _toupper/_tolower in Objects/stringlib/stringdef.h and
Objects/stringobject.c. Those should be rationalized as well.

I'll implement this by adding a pyctype.h and pyctype.c, mimicking
<ctype.h>. I'll essentially copy and rename the methods in
bytes_methods.[ch], then change bytes_methods.h to refer to the new
versions, for backward compatibility.

Checked in to trunk (rr72040) and py3k (r72044).

Windows buildbots look okay, closing.