string-encoding

What encoding do normal python strings use?

i know that django uses unicode strings all over the framework instead of normal python strings. what encoding are normal python strings use ? and why don't they use unicode? ...

Encoding a 5 character string into a unique and repeatable 32bit Integer

I've not given this much thought yet, so I might turn out to be a silly question. How can I take unique 5 ASCII character string and convert into a unique and reproducable (i.e needs to be the same every time) 32 bit integer? Any ideas? ...

[Adobe AIR] How can I detect and convert text encoding?

Some text (or html) document from web is not encoded as UTF-8, so I want to convert encoding of text document to UTF-8. Do you have any clues for dealing with text encoding? And I found that, when application draws element with encoding-broken text (such as "¿©¼º ½̾ ±â"), the application is often killed with alert dialog "adl quit une...