filesdirectoriesnetwork interfacesdatabasespipesjsonxmland even guisunicode may no longer be an optional topic for you in python python ' support for unicode and binary data is also available in xalbeit in different forms although our main focus in this is on string types in xwe'll also explore how ' equivalent support differs along the way for readers using regardless of which version you usethe tools we'll explore here can become important in many types of programs string basics before we look at any codelet' begin with general overview of python' string model to understand why changed the way it did on this frontwe have to start with brief look at how characters are actually represented in computers--both when encoded in files and when stored in memory character encoding schemes most programmers think of strings as series of characters used to represent textual data while that' accuratethe way characters are stored can varydepending on what sort of character set must be recorded when text is stored on filesfor exampleits character set determines its format character sets are standards that assign integer codes to individual characters so they can be represented in computer memory the ascii standardfor examplewas created in the and it defines many programmersnotion of text strings ascii defines character codes from through and allows each character to be stored in one bit byteonly bits of which are actually used for examplethe ascii standard maps the character 'ato the integer value ( in hex)which can be stored in single byte in memory and files if you wish to see how this workspython' ord built-in function gives the binary identifying value for characterand chr returns the character for given integer code valueord(' ' hex( ' chr( ' 'ais byte with binary value in ascii (and othersbinary value stands for character 'asometimes one byte per character isn' enoughthough various symbols and accented charactersfor instancedo not fit into the range of possible characters defined by ascii to accommodate special characterssome standards use all the possible values string basics