code: def encode_payload(self, messages):
          
          if not messages or messages[0] is None:
              return ''
  
          if len(messages) == 1:
              return messages[0].encode('utf-8')
  
          payload = u''.join([(u'\ufffd%d\ufffd%s' % (len(p), p))
                              for p in messages if p is not None])
          # FIXME: why is it so that we must filter None from here ?  How
          #        is it even possible that a None gets in there ?
  
          return payload.encode('utf-8')
docs: Encode list of messages. Expects messages to be unicode.
  
          ``messages`` - List of raw messages to encode, if necessary