With bpo-3080, Python 3.3 does now manipulate module paths and names as Unicode in the import machinery. But in 3 remaining places, it does encode filenames (to the ANSI code page):

a) _PyImport_LoadDynamicModule()

It should pass directly the PyObject* (instead of a char*) to _PyImport_GetDynLoadFunc(), but only on Windows (we may change the function name for Windows). _PyImport_GetDynLoadFunc() of dynload_win.c has to be patched to use the Unicode API (eg. LoadLibraryEx => LoadLibraryExW).

b) write_compiled_module()

The problem is to implement open_exclusive() for Windows using Unicode. open_exclusive() uses open() on Windows, but open() expects the filename as a byte string. We may use _Py_fopen() (_wfopen), but this function doesn't have an option to open the file in exclusive mode (O_EXCL flag). GNU has an extension: "x" flag in the file mode, but Windows doesn't support it.

The file is passed to marshal functions like PyMarshal_WriteLongToFile(), and so the file have to be a FILE*.

c) parse_source_module()

=> covered by the issue bpo-10785.

open_exclusive() was created by:

changeset: 14708:89b2aee43e0b
branch: legacy-trunk
user: Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org>
date: Wed Sep 20 20:31:38 2000 +0000
files: Python/import.c
description:
On Unix, use O_EXCL when creating the .pyc/.pyo files, to avoid a race condition

dynload_win.patch: Fix part (a), _PyImport_LoadDynamicModule().

New changeset 1b7f484bab6e by Victor Stinner in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-11619: _PyImport_LoadDynamicModule() doesn't encode the path to bytes
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/1b7f484bab6e

New changeset e4e92d68ba3a by Victor Stinner in branch 'default':
Close bpo-11619: write_compiled_module() doesn't encode the filename
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/e4e92d68ba3a

c) parse_source_module()
=> covered by the issue bpo-10785.

Issue bpo-10785 didn't change parse_source_module(): it does still encode the filename.

We need Unicode version of PyParser_ASTFromFile() and PyAST_Compile(): a new version of these functions accepting a filename as a Unicode string.

For PyParser_ASTFromFile(): bpo-10785 prepared the work.

For PyAST_Compile(): struct compiler stores the filename as a byte string, the filename should be stored as Unicode.

compile_filename.patch:

• Add PyErr_ProgramTextObject() and PyErr_WarnExplicitObject() functions
• Store the filename as Unicode in compile.c
• Remove the filename from get_ref_type() fatal error (I never see such fatal error, and I hope that it does never happen, so the filename should not really matter here)

The patch prepares the work to pass the filename to the compiler directly as Unicode.

Another huge patch to support Unicode filenames: parser_unicode.patch

Doc/c-api/exceptions.rst | 26 +++++++++++---
Include/ast.h | 5 ++
Include/compile.h | 15 +++++++-
Include/parsetok.h | 42 ++++++++++++++++++-----
Include/pyerrors.h | 7 +++
Include/pythonrun.h | 16 ++++++++
Include/symtable.h | 6 ++-
Include/warnings.h | 8 ++++
Modules/parsermodule.c | 49 +++++++++++++++++----------
Modules/symtablemodule.c | 10 +++--
Parser/parsetok.c | 82 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
Python/_warnings.c | 31 +++++++++++------
Python/ast.c | 40 ++++++++++++----------
Python/compile.c | 69 +++++++++++++++++++++-----------------
Python/errors.c | 57 ++++++++++++++++++++++---------
Python/future.c | 27 +++++++++++---
Python/import.c | 20 +++--------
Python/pythonrun.c | 85 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
Python/symtable.c | 73 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
19 files changed, 480 insertions(+), 188 deletions(-)

It creates new functions of the following functions which are undocumented:

• PyAST_FromNode
• PyFuture_FromAST
• PyAST_Compile
• PyParser_ParseFileFlagsEx
• PyParser_ParseStringFlagsFilenameEx
• PyErr_ProgramText
• PyParser_ASTFromString
• PyParser_ASTFromFile
• PySymtable_Build

We might remove these functions, but they are part of the public API (but they are undocumented).

The patch is really huge for such a very rare use case, so I prefer to close the issue as wont fix. Common cases with non-ASCII names are already handled correctly in Python 3.3.

Is there a chance this will be fixed at least in Python 4?

This may be a small use case, but a use case none-the less. In my situation, I am distributing a frozen python package and it runs under the users home directory. If the user's name has international characters, this will fail.

I expect we will have similar problems when dealing with our application which embeds python and is also running from within the user directory...

I reopen the issue because some users are now requesting this feature.

I updated parser_unicode.patch to the last Python version. The new patch has just a minor nit: test_symtable does crash :-D

I will investigate the crash later.

I updated parser_unicode.patch to the last Python version. The new patch has just a minor nit: test_symtable does crash :-D

Fixed in new patch: parser_unicode-3.patch

New changeset df2fdd42b375 by Victor Stinner in branch 'default':
Close bpo-11619: The parser and the import machinery do not encode Unicode
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/df2fdd42b375