pydata/pandas — pull request #1983 by y-p (2012-09-27 15:34:53+00:00)
Title: UnicodeEncodeError in index.summary() #1982

fixes #1982

I had to hemstring another test so the fix will not break the tests, see
first patch in series I think it's the right thing to do.

I did another fix for a similar unicode problem in 703bbba7ff3bd,
there seems to be some Unicode whack-a-mole going on.

I'm willing to try my hand at fixing the problem, but it'll require
lots of changes throughout the codebase and some pain until things
settle down. would you consider such a big PR?

Basicaly, all internals should be unicode objects, and conversion should be
done and at all entry points, and only there - file input, setters, repr's , etc

there's also the issue of a default encoding, when people hand in strings which need
to be converted to unicode.
Whether an explicit encoding should always be specified,
or if the user be made responsible for supplying either unicode object or utf-8 strings always.
if explicit encoding is supported everywhere, that's a lot of altered signatures, and if not
that's a lot of broken code which relies on the current laxity.

Up to you, I'm offering my help.