Can I Ensure That Users That Import My Python Code Use Unicode Literals?

My code includes from __future__ import unicode_literals and has many functions that accept (and expect) Unicode strings as input in order to function fully. Is there a way to ens

Solution 1:

No, unicode_literals is a per-module configuration and must be imported in each and every module where it is to be used.

The best way is just to mention it in the docstring of my_func that you are expecting unicode objects.

If you insist, you could enforce it to fail early:

defmy_func(my_arg):
    ifnotisinstance(my_arg, unicode):
        raise Exception('This function only handles unicode inputs')

If you need it in many places, it might be nicer to implement it with a decorator.

On python3.5 or up, you could use type hints to enforce this.