Marc-Andre's third try at this bulk patch seems to work (except that

his copy of test_contains.py seems to be broken -- the lines he
deleted were already absent).  Checkin messages:


New Unicode support for int(), float(), complex() and long().

- new APIs PyInt_FromUnicode() and PyLong_FromUnicode()
- added support for Unicode to PyFloat_FromString()
- new encoding API PyUnicode_EncodeDecimal() which converts
  Unicode to a decimal char* string (used in the above new
  APIs)
- shortcuts for calls like int(<int object>) and float(<float obj>)
- tests for all of the above

Unicode compares and contains checks:
- comparing Unicode and non-string types now works; TypeErrors
  are masked, all other errors such as ValueError during
  Unicode coercion are passed through (note that PyUnicode_Compare
  does not implement the masking -- PyObject_Compare does this)
- contains now works for non-string types too; TypeErrors are
  masked and 0 returned; all other errors are passed through

Better testing support for the standard codecs.

Misc minor enhancements, such as an alias dbcs for the mbcs codec.

Changes:
- PyLong_FromString() now applies the same error checks as
  does PyInt_FromString(): trailing garbage is reported
  as error and not longer silently ignored. The only characters
  which may be trailing the digits are 'L' and 'l' -- these
  are still silently ignored.
- string.ato?() now directly interface to int(), long() and
  float(). The error strings are now a little different, but
  the type still remains the same. These functions are now
  ready to get declared obsolete ;-)
- PyNumber_Int() now also does a check for embedded NULL chars
  in the input string; PyNumber_Long() already did this (and
  still does)

Followed by:

Looks like I've gone a step too far there... (and test_contains.py
seem to have a bug too).

I've changed back to reporting all errors in PyUnicode_Contains()
and added a few more test cases to test_contains.py (plus corrected
the join() NameError).

Lib/string.py

@@ -196,14 +196,11 @@ def atof(s):
     Return the floating point number represented by the string s.
 
     """
-    if type(s) == _StringType:
-        return _float(s)
-    else:
-        raise TypeError('argument 1: expected string, %s found' %
-                        type(s).__name__)
+    return _float(s)
+
 
 # Convert string to integer
-def atoi(*args):
+def atoi(s , base=10):
     """atoi(s [,base]) -> int
 
     Return the integer represented by the string s in the given
@@ -214,23 +211,11 @@ def atoi(*args):
     accepted.
 
     """
-    try:
-        s = args[0]
-    except IndexError:
-        raise TypeError('function requires at least 1 argument: %d given' %
-                        len(args))
-    # Don't catch type error resulting from too many arguments to int().  The
-    # error message isn't compatible but the error type is, and this function
-    # is complicated enough already.
-    if type(s) == _StringType:
-        return _apply(_int, args)
-    else:
-        raise TypeError('argument 1: expected string, %s found' %
-                        type(s).__name__)
+    return _int(s, base)
 
 
 # Convert string to long integer
-def atol(*args):
+def atol(s, base=10):
     """atol(s [,base]) -> long
 
     Return the long integer represented by the string s in the
@@ -242,19 +227,7 @@ def atol(*args):
     unless base is 0.
 
     """
-    try:
-        s = args[0]
-    except IndexError:
-        raise TypeError('function requires at least 1 argument: %d given' %
-                        len(args))
-    # Don't catch type error resulting from too many arguments to long().  The
-    # error message isn't compatible but the error type is, and this function
-    # is complicated enough already.
-    if type(s) == _StringType:
-        return _apply(_long, args)
-    else:
-        raise TypeError('argument 1: expected string, %s found' %
-                        type(s).__name__)
+    return _long(s, base)
 
 
 # Left-justify a string