It would be nice to get access to complete
locale-specific ctype information:

iscntrl()
isgraph()
isprint()
ispunct()

Also, the string.uppercase and string.lowercase depend
on LC_CTYPE locale. The string module has two other
members that could depend on LC_CTYPE,
string.punctuation and string.printable.

The current docs (in
http://www.python.org/doc/2.3.4/lib/module-string.html)
on string.printable is misleading, as string.printable
is not changed after LC_CTYPE locale changes, and it is
always
printable = digits + ascii_letters + punctuation +
whitespace

My approach is to create string.printable and
string.punctuation based on locale information, just
like string.uppercase and string.lowercase is done, and
add string.ascii_punctuation and string.ascii_printable
for the C locale values.

Patch containing proposed changes in stringobject,
string and _locale modules attached. No tests nor
changes to the docs, sorry.

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Why do you need these functions?

It is convention that the Unicode type provides the same or
more methods, can you provide a patch that has a meaningful
definition for these methods for Unicode strings?

Reclassifying issue as a patch.

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I personally don't see a need for these functions. As the
submitter cannot explain the need, either, I'm rejecting the
patch.