bug#5794: 23.1; UnicodeEncodeError in python-shell

[Dave Love]

Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com> writes:

> This is due to the following line in `run-python', which I merged from
> the upstream python.el on 2008-02-21:
>
>        ;; Suppress use of pager for help output:
>        (process-connection-type nil))
>
> Dave, do you remember what the rationale for this is?  (I don't
> understand the comment.)

It's the most likely way to suppress interactive i/o generally, which is
why it should normally be used for inferior interpreters and things like
VC, apart from the reasons in the manual to avoid PTYs.

> I'm not sure why using a pipe rather than a pty makes a difference,
> though.

It's certainly odd behaviour, but as you're dropping python.el for
python-mode.el, you needn't worry about it.  Amongst other things,
python-mode.el doesn't have the features that require results from the
sub-process.