$ python
Python 2.4.1 (#1, May 16 2005, 15:19:29)
[GCC 4.0.0 20050512 (Red Hat 4.0.0-5)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for
more information.
>>> import codecs
>>> codecs.lookup('ascii')
(<built-in function ascii_encode>, <built-in function
ascii_decode>, <class encodings.ascii.StreamReader at
0xb7f1302c>, <class encodings.ascii.StreamWriter at
0xb7f82fbc>)
>>> codecs.lookup('mbcs')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/encodings/__init__.py", line
96, in search_function
    globals(), locals(), _import_tail)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/encodings/mbcs.py", line 14,
in ?
    class Codec(codecs.Codec):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/encodings/mbcs.py", line 18,
in Codec
    encode = codecs.mbcs_encode
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute
'mbcs_encode'
>>> codecs.lookup('tactis')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
LookupError: unknown encoding: tactis

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mbcs is only available on Windows.

I'm not sure what happened to the tactis codec - it's
possible that it never got checked in.

Do you have a reference for the tactis encoding ?

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UTF-8 is an MBCS encoding in that is is a "multiple byte
character set", right? :-)  UTF-16 is an MSCS; multiple
short character set.

There appears to have been some discussion on 'tactis' and
'tactis260' earlier in bug 854511.

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-bugs-list/2003-December/021394.html

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If 'mbcs' is Windows-only, then why does it appear in the
list of registered codecs in encodings.aliases.aliases on
the Linux platform?  Shouldn't it not be registered on other
platforms?

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Yes, UTF-8 is a multi-byte character set, but no, UTF-8 and
mbcs are not synonyms. See

http://docs.python.org/lib/standard-encodings.html

for the documentation. encodings.aliases.aliases is no
registration - it is an alias databse. So if somebody refers
to "dbcs", this will be aliased to "mbcs". That does not
mean "mbcs" needs to be supported - it only means "dbcs" is
not supported on Linux, either.

tactis was never part of a Python release, so its lack is
not a bug.

Closing this report as invalid.

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Reopened: this is indeed a bug - the tactis codec is
referenced in the aliases table but was never added to the
encodings package.

Either the codec will have to be added, or the alias entry
removed.

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Where is bug 854511 regarding Thai encodings?  The URL has
some discussion of this bug on TISI and ISO encodings.

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-bugs-list/2003-December/021394.html

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It's not a bug, it's a feature request, and it's at

http://python.org/sf/854511

I have rejected the request.

The 'tactis' codec is still missing, but it's not mentioned in docs
either: http://docs.python.org/dev/library/codecs.html#id3

I'll close this one soon unless someone voices disagreement.

It looks like few people need this codec (no message since 2005), so I 
close this feature request.

Reopen this issue if you need this codec.