import re


def safe_subn(pattern, repl, target, *args, **kwargs):
    """
        There are Unicode conversion problems with re.subn. We try to smooth
        that over by casting the pattern and replacement to strings. We really
        need a better solution that is aware of the actual content ecoding.
    """
    return re.subn(str(pattern), str(repl), target, *args, **kwargs)