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encode()/decode() have used UTF-8 as the default since Python 3.2 (soon, 15 years ago). This is about the default encoding for e.g. the "encoding" parameter of open().

You mean the coding= comment? Where are you shipping your code that that was actually a problem? I've never been on a project where we did that, let alone needed it.

The comment you mention applies to source code encoding and it's obsolete for Python 3 since the beginning. This is about something else: https://docs.python.org/3.15/whatsnew/3.15.html#whatsnew315-...

Makes sense, my bad, but even that is something I've never seen. I guess this is mostly a Windows thing? I've luckily never had the misfortune of having to deploy Python code on Windows.

It's a Linux thing too. It bit me in particular when running a script in a container that defaulted to ascii rather than utf-8 locale.

Have you considered reducing review noise by using static analysis?

Yep, ruff has a warning for this exact issue.

Pylint has had it too for at least a decade.

Ruff's rule is derived from Pylint: https://docs.astral.sh/ruff/rules/unspecified-encoding/