From: Fred Drake <fdrake@acm.org>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 13:57:32 +0000 (+0000)
Subject: Clarify that len() of a Unicode string returns the number of storage units,
X-Git-Tag: v2.2.2b1~131
X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=6f3c65422d6a2309d84dfdc0698d7825bc9063f9;p=thirdparty%2FPython%2Fcpython.git

Clarify that len() of a Unicode string returns the number of storage units,
not abstract characters.
---

diff --git a/Doc/lib/libfuncs.tex b/Doc/lib/libfuncs.tex
index fc00dd4197d6..e47e01e8def8 100644
--- a/Doc/lib/libfuncs.tex
+++ b/Doc/lib/libfuncs.tex
@@ -526,6 +526,10 @@ def my_import(name):
 \begin{funcdesc}{len}{s}
   Return the length (the number of items) of an object.  The argument
   may be a sequence (string, tuple or list) or a mapping (dictionary).
+  In the case of Unicode strings, \function{len()} returns the number
+  of storage units, not abstract characters.  In particular, when a
+  surrogate pair is encountered, each component of the pair is counted
+  as a separate character.
 \end{funcdesc}
 
 \begin{funcdesc}{list}{\optional{sequence}}