Merging in latest boto.

boto/sdb/db/blob.py

 # Copyright (c) 2006,2007,2008 Mitch Garnaat http://garnaat.org/
 #
 # Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
 # copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
 # "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
 # without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, dis-
 # tribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit
 # persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the fol-
 # lowing conditions:
 #
@@ skipping 19 matching lines @@
     @property
     def file(self):
         from StringIO import StringIO
         if self._file:
             f = self._file
         else:
             f = StringIO(self.value)
         return f
 
     def __str__(self):
+        return unicode(self).encode('utf-8')
+
+    def __unicode__(self):
         if hasattr(self.file, "get_contents_as_string"):
             value = self.file.get_contents_as_string()
         else:
             value = self.file.getvalue()
-        try:
-            return str(value)
-        except:
-            return unicode(value)
+        if isinstance(value, unicode):
+            return value
+        else:
+            return value.decode('utf-8')
+
 
     def read(self):
-        return self.file.read()
+        if hasattr(self.file, "get_contents_as_string"):
+            return self.file.get_contents_as_string()
+        else:
+            return self.file.read()
 
     def readline(self):
         return self.file.readline()
 
     def next(self):
         return self.file.next()
 
     def __iter__(self):
         return iter(self.file)
 
     @property
     def size(self):
         if self._file:
             return self._file.size
         elif self.value:
             return len(self.value)
         else:
             return 0