I believe they fixed that in 3.1, so it&#x27;s no longer impossible: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.python.org&#x2F;dev&#x2F;peps&#x2F;pep-0383&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.python.org&#x2F;dev&#x2F;peps&#x2F;pep-0383&#x2F;</a><p>Regarding the huge mess, that exists with or without Python 3 if filenames use unknown, incorrect or inconsistent encodings. To treat a path as as text, e.g. to show it to a human or send to another system, you have to know its encoding. Python 3 and GTK (with its
G_FILENAME_ENCODING and G_BROKEN_FILENAMES) make this clear - some other software (like Python 2) just silently uses and propagates the broken data.