From: Fred Drake <fdrake@acm.org>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 13:57:21 +0000 (+0000)
Subject: Clarify that len() of a Unicode string returns the number of storage units,
X-Git-Tag: v2.3c1~3999
X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=7b788e0582e3b9b92634b6955fb4fa39f0b1428f;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 4a0efdb78f7b..491e0fef7d9a 100644
--- a/Doc/lib/libfuncs.tex
+++ b/Doc/lib/libfuncs.tex
@@ -568,6 +568,10 @@ 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}}