[Python-Dev] base64 module

[Sanghyeon Seo]

Hello,

base64 module documentation for b64decode function says, "TypeError is
raised if s were incorrectly padded or if there are non-alphabet
characters present in the string." But this doesn't seem to be the
case. Testcase:

import base64
base64.b64decode('%')

Since % is a non-alphabet character, this should raise TypeError (btw,
shouldn't this be ValueError instead?), but Python 2.4.3 silently
ignores.

I found this while experimenting with IronPython. IronPython 1.0 Beta 5 gives:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File base64, line unknown, in b64decode
SystemError: cannot decode byte: '%'

It's not TypeError, but it doesn't silently ignore either.

Seo Sanghyeon