[codeka]

I'm sorry but you're wrong. I suggest you inform yourself better of the subject you're talking about before you call people "ignorant morons" next time.

dietrichepp is talking about Normalized Form D, which is a valid form of Unicode and cannot be counted using codepoints like you're doing.

Maybe you can try:

'𠀋'.substr(0,1)

[est]

yeah sure why not.

    >>> u'𡘓'[0:1]
    u'\U00021613'

    >>> u'Hi, Mr𡘓'[-1]
    u'\U00021613

    >>> u'𠀋'[0:1]
    u'\U0002000b'

Javascript won't work because UCS2 in js engine, duh.

Actually Javascript is messed up with Unicode string and binary strings, that's why Nodejs invented Buffer

http://nodejs.org/api/buffer.html

[codeka]

You've moved the goalposts:

  u'\U00021613'

This is a UTF-32 code unit, not a UTF-16 code unit. Even UTF-32 doesn't help when you have combining characters. I suggest you read dietrichepp's post again, he's talking about Normalization Form D.

[est]

Okay, if it's an explicit combining character what's wrong with explicit character part counting?

You know normalized form is the norm, right?

[cmccabe]

There are four different normalized forms in Unicode. Maybe you should enlighten us about which one you're talking about.

Or just stop embarrassing yourself.

[est]

Reading all of your comments, so you are suggesting a Unicode object should not have len() or substring() ?

A standard like that is totally not embarrassing.

[cmccabe]

I am suggesting that people read about unicode before designing supposedly cross-platform applications or programming languages. It's not that hard, just different than ASCII.