No isinstance unicode in Python3

[DenisCarriere]

The isinstance statement with unicode does not exist in python3:

    if isinstance(s, unicode):

Here's how I fixed it in my versions, but I still don't know if it's actually the best way to test unicode so I won't do a pull request unless someone can tell me it's actually correct.

# Example ONLY
if sys.version_info.major == 2:
    if isinstance(value, (str, unicode)):  # noqa
        return value

elif sys.version_info.major == 3:
    if isinstance(value, str):
        return value

Python3 error

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/denis/Github/ACAPS-tools/parser.py", line 166, in
export('Guinea_Locations_Export.csv', ['google', 'bing', 'osm'])
File "/home/denis/Github/ACAPS-tools/parser.py", line 124, in export
writer.writeheader()
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/unicodecsv/init.py", line 158, in writeheader
self.writerow(header)
File "/usr/lib/python3.4/csv.py", line 153, in writerow
return self.writer.writerow(self._dict_to_list(rowdict))
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/unicodecsv/init.py", line 86, in writerow
return self.writer.writerow(_stringify_list(row, self.encoding, self.encoding_errors))
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/unicodecsv/init.py", line 51, in _stringify_list
return [_stringify(s, encoding, errors) for s in iter(l)]
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/unicodecsv/init.py", line 51, in
return [_stringify(s, encoding, errors) for s in iter(l)]
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/unicodecsv/init.py", line 41, in _stringify
if isinstance(s, unicode):
NameError: name 'unicode' is not defined

[tsroten]

It might be cleaner to keep that conditional statement as is. At the top of the module you could do this:

is_python3 = sys.version_info.major == 3
if is_python3:
    unicode = str

Then, all references to unicode will work properly.

[DenisCarriere]

@tsroten Oh sweet, I've never thought of that! that looks good!

Thanks, I know that unicodecsv isn't really testing for Python3, but I'll incorporate in my code 👍

[jackmaney]

This is probably a bit of a newb question, especially since I'm just making the transition from Python 2 to 3, but doesn't Python 3's csv handle unicode?

If so, then you can just do:

import six

if six.PY3:
    import csv
else:
    import unicodecsv as csv

[DenisCarriere]

Python 3 does handle Unicode in the CSV module, however when you build your code to work for both versions you will eventually have your code break at the `isinstance` function since the `unicode` variable doesn't exist in Python 3. This little code piece helps solve this issue.

[jdunck]

I've added py3 in 0.12.0 - please try it out and open another issue if you find specific problems. :)

[fletchowns]

@jdunck Thank you! It seems to work great for me. The only thing I noticed was that the setup.py has not been updated to indicate that this package works with Python 3. Created #55 for that.