old_contents: #  Copyright 2008-2009 Nokia Siemens Networks Oyj
  #
  #  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  #  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
  #  You may obtain a copy of the License at
  #
  #      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
  #
  #  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  #  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  #  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
  #  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
  #  limitations under the License.
  
  import os
  import sys
  
  
  def unic(item):
      # Based on a recipe from http://code.activestate.com/recipes/466341
      try:
          return unicode(item)
      except UnicodeDecodeError:
          ascii_text = str(item).encode('string_escape')
          return unicode(ascii_text)
  
  
  if os.name == 'java' and sys.version_info[:2] > (2,2):
  
      from java.lang import Object, Class
      _unic = unic
  
      def unic(item):
          if isinstance(item, basestring):
              return item
          if isinstance(item, Object) and not isinstance(item, Class): # http://bugs.jython.org/issue1564
              item = item.toString()  # http://bugs.jython.org/issue1563
          return _unic(item)
  
  
  elif os.name == 'java':
  
      def unic(item):
          if isinstance(item, basestring):
              return item
          return unicode(item)
  
new_contents: #  Copyright 2008-2009 Nokia Siemens Networks Oyj
  #
  #  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  #  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
  #  You may obtain a copy of the License at
  #
  #      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
  #
  #  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  #  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  #  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
  #  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
  #  limitations under the License.
  
  import os
  import sys
  
  
  def unic(item, *args):
      # Based on a recipe from http://code.activestate.com/recipes/466341
      try:
          return unicode(item, *args)
      except UnicodeDecodeError:
          ascii_text = str(item).encode('string_escape')
          return unicode(ascii_text)
  
  
  if os.name == 'java' and sys.version_info[:2] > (2,2):
  
      from java.lang import Object, Class
      _unic = unic
  
      def unic(item, *args):
          if isinstance(item, basestring) and not args:
              return item
          if isinstance(item, Object) and not isinstance(item, Class): # http://bugs.jython.org/issue1564
              item = item.toString()  # http://bugs.jython.org/issue1563
          return _unic(item, *args)
  
  
  elif os.name == 'java':
  
      def unic(item, *args):
          if isinstance(item, basestring):
              return item
          return unicode(item)
  
subject: Allow caller to specify encoding