I just installed the first release candidate of Python 3.0 and got this error after typing:
>>> help('modules foo')
[...] LookupError: unknown encoding: uft-8
Notice that it says uft-8 and not utf-8
Is this a py3k specific bug or a misconfiguration on my part? I do not have any other versions of Python installed on this French locale Windows XP SP3 machine.
Edit
A bug has been filled by Alex Coventry on October 16th.
Looks like a typo in a config file somewhere, whether in the Py3k package or on your machine. You might try installing the stable final Python 2.6 (which supports 3.0 syntax changes with imports from __future__), and if that works you should probably file a bug report.
It's not a typo, it's a deliberate error in a test module.
met% pwd
/home/coventry/src/Python-3.0rc1
met% rgrep uft-8 .
./Lib/test/bad_coding.py:# -*- coding: uft-8 -*-
./py3k/Lib/test/bad_coding.py:# -*- coding: uft-8 -*-
Removing this module causes the help command to fall over in a different way.
It is a bug, however. Someone should file a report.