-# Set the default string conversion encoding from the locale
-import locale
-default = locale.getdefaultlocale()[1]
+# Set wxPython's default string<-->unicode conversion encoding from
+# the locale, but only if Python's default hasn't been changed. (We
+# assume that if the user has customized it already then that is the
+# encoding we need to use as well.)
+#
+# The encoding selected here is used when string or unicode objects
+# need to be converted in order to pass them to wxWidgets. Please be
+# aware that the default encoding within the same locale may be
+# slightly different on different platforms. For example, please see
+# http://www.alanwood.net/demos/charsetdiffs.html for differences
+# between the common latin/roman encodings.
+
+default = _sys.getdefaultencoding()
+if default == 'ascii':
+ import locale
+ import codecs
+ try:
+ default = locale.getdefaultlocale()[1]
+ codecs.lookup(default)
+ except (ValueError, LookupError, TypeError):
+ default = _sys.getdefaultencoding()
+ del locale
+ del codecs