+=head1 STRINGS
+
+There are a lot of places where strings are sent from collectd to Python and
+from Python to collectd. How exactly this works depends on whether byte or
+unicode strings or Python2 or Python3 are used.
+
+Python2 has I<str>, which is just bytes, and I<unicode>. Python3 has I<str>,
+which is a unicode object, and I<bytes>.
+
+When passing strings from Python to collectd all of these object are supported
+in all places, however I<str> should be used if possible. These strings must
+not contain a NUL byte. Ignoring this will result in a I<TypeError> exception.
+If a byte string was used it will be used as is by collectd. If a unicode
+object was used it will be encoded using the default encoding (see above). If
+this is not possible Python will raise a I<UnicodeEncodeError> exception.
+
+When passing strings from collectd to Python the behavior depends on the
+Python version used. Python2 will always receive a I<str> object. Python3 will
+usually receive a I<str> object as well, however the original string will be
+decoded to unicode using the default encoding. If this fails because the
+string is not a valid sequence for this encoding a I<bytes> object will be
+returned instead.
+