Python 2.7: print doesn't speak unicode to the io module?

Question

import sys, codecs, io

codecsout = codecs.getwriter('utf8')(sys.stdout)
ioout = io.open(sys.stdout.fileno(), mode='w', encoding='utf8')
print >> sys.stdout, 1
print >> codecsout, 2
print >> ioout, 3

Fails with:

1
2
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "print.py", line 7, in <module>
    print >> ioout, 3
TypeError: must be unicode, not str

It fails with print(3, file=ioout) from the __future__ as well.

Does print not know how to talk to the io module?

Answer 1

Evidently it doesn't. Even if you give it an explicit Unicode string, it doesn't work.

>>> print >> ioout, u'3'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: must be unicode, not str

I'm guessing the problem is in the newline that is automatically appended to the end. The print function from the future doesn't appear to have the same problem:

>>> from __future__ import print_function
>>> print(unicode(3), file=ioout)
3