Mailman 3 October 2010 - docs

[issue9913] Misc/SpecialBuilds.txt is out of date
by Alexander Belopolsky 18 Feb '15

18 Feb '15

New submission from Alexander Belopolsky <belopolsky(a)users.sourceforge.net>: It looks like Misc/SpecialBuilds.txt has not been updated since 2.4. This file is referenced from C-API documentation [1], but is not accessible as a hyperlink. Some of the recommendations in this file are out of date, in particular those that recommend setting make variables where a configure switch is available. I believe it would be best to retire Misc/SpecialBuilds.txt and move still relevant sections to proper .rst files. [1] http://docs.python.org/dev/py3k/c-api/intro.html#debugging-builds ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 117076 nosy: belopolsky, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Misc/SpecialBuilds.txt is out of date versions: Python 3.2 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue9913> _______________________________________

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[issue9536] defaultdict doc makes incorrect reference to __missing__ method
by John Posner 12 Dec '14

12 Dec '14

New submission from John Posner <jjposner(a)optimum.net>: The documentation for collections.defaultdict is confusing with respect to the __missing__ method. The fact is that a programmer using defaultdict does not need to know anything about __missing__. The attached patch contains a rewrite of the entire section (but not the "defaultdict Examples" section, which is fine. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation files: defaultdict.patch keywords: patch messages: 113105 nosy: docs@python, jjposner priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: defaultdict doc makes incorrect reference to __missing__ method versions: Python 2.7 Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file18417/defaultdict.patch _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue9536> _______________________________________

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[issue10031] Withdraw anti-recommendation of relative imports from documentation
by Darren Dale 06 Oct '14

06 Oct '14

New submission from Darren Dale <dsdale24(a)gmail.com>: Old-style relative imports have been strongly discouraged in some sections of the python documentation. This was discussed on the python-dev mailing list. Executive summary: "The issue is implementing a PEP with nice support for relative imports, and then documenting that it should never be used." To which Guido responded: --- "Isn't this mostly historical? Until the new relative-import syntax was implemented there were various problems with relative imports. The short-term solution was to recommend not using them. The long-term solution was to implement an unambiguous syntax. Now it is time to withdraw the anti-recommendation. Of course, without going overboard -- I still find them an acquired taste; but they have their place." --- It was suggested I open a ticket and suggest specific changes. They are listed below: The faq at http://docs.python.org/py3k/faq/programming.html#what-are-the-best-practice… could go from: "Never use relative package imports. If you’re writing code that’s in the package.sub.m1 module and want to import package.sub.m2, do not just write from . import m2, even though it’s legal. Write from package.sub import m2 instead. See PEP 328 for details." to: "Although the python community generally prefers absolute imports, relative imports may be useful in certain circumstances. See PEP 328 for details." The programming faq for python-2.7 at http://docs.python.org/faq/programming.html#what-are-the-best-practices-for… could go from: "Never use relative package imports. If you’re writing code that’s in the package.sub.m1 module and want to import package.sub.m2, do not just write import m2, even though it’s legal. Write from package.sub import m2 instead. Relative imports can lead to a module being initialized twice, leading to confusing bugs. See PEP 328 for details." to: "Although the python community generally prefers absolute imports, relative imports may be useful in certain circumstances. Support for relative imports has recently been improved, and the use of the old-style relative imports is strongly discouraged. See PEP 328 for details." There is also this warning against relative imports in PEP 8, that could go from: - Relative imports for intra-package imports are highly discouraged. Always use the absolute package path for all imports. Even now that PEP 328 [7] is fully implemented in Python 2.5, its style of explicit relative imports is actively discouraged; absolute imports are more portable and usually more readable. to: - While the python community generally prefers absolute imports, relative imports may be useful in certain circumstances. Now that PEP 328 [7] is fully implemented in Python 2.5 and later, the older style of implicit relative imports is strongly discouraged. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 118031 nosy: docs@python, dsdale24 priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Withdraw anti-recommendation of relative imports from documentation versions: Python 2.6, Python 2.7, Python 3.1, Python 3.2, Python 3.3 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue10031> _______________________________________

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[issue9307] Py_TPFLAGS_LONG_SUBCLASS is not documented
by Alexander Belopolsky 28 Apr '14

28 Apr '14

New submission from Alexander Belopolsky <belopolsky(a)users.sourceforge.net>: Is there a reason for not documenting Py_TPFLAGS_LONG_SUBCLASS (Py_TPFLAGS_INT_SUBCLASS in 2.x)? This flag is used in PyLong_Check, but neither this flag or its inheritance properties are explained anywhere in the docs. See also issue5476. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 110787 nosy: belopolsky, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal stage: needs patch status: open title: Py_TPFLAGS_LONG_SUBCLASS is not documented type: feature request _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue9307> _______________________________________

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[issue9364] some problems with the documentation of pydoc
by Eli Bendersky 19 Apr '14

19 Apr '14

New submission from Eli Bendersky <eliben(a)gmail.com>: The first paragraph in its documentation says: """ In the Python interpreter, do "from pydoc import help" to provide online help. Calling help(thing) on a Python object documents the object. """ Which is no longer accurate, because the help() function has long ago become a built-in. Below is an excerpt from Terry Reedy in a private email discussion on this subject, that raises more issues. --------------------------------------------- 1. The output from help(help) could be made more clear. The nature of 'help' has been a point of confusion. A recent python-list post asked something like "What is 'help'?" Now (with some parallel examples: >>> help(int) Help on class int in module builtins: class int(object) [snip] >>> help(1) Help on int object: class int(object) [snip] >>> help(help) Help on _Helper in module site object: class _Helper(builtins.object) | Define the built-in 'help'. | This is a wrapper around pydoc.help (with a twist). | | Methods defined here: | | __call__(self, *args, **kwds) | a. 'module site object' is nonsense, it should just be 'module site', except that to be parallel to what is done for other instances, it should be 'Help on _Helper object'. Why should help special-case itself (with a slightly garbled line?) Is that done in site._Helper or pydoc.help? However, it would be more helpful for all instances to give the location of the class when one asks for help on an instance, just as when one asks for help on the class itself. It is annoying to to have to repeat help(<classname>) just to get that info. So I would like to see "Help on instance of class int in module builtins:" "Help on instance of class _Helper in module site:" This would be a code patch to pydoc.help b. "This is a wrapper around pydoc.help" good so far "(with a twist)" thanks a lot. I think the comment should be either removed or explained. A reference manual should explain, not tease. Replace "Define the built-in 'help'." with something clearer and more accurate, such as "The name 'help' is injected in module builtins after being bound to an instance of this class.". Put this after, not before, the 'wrapper' line. A patch for site._Helper doc string. 2. Improve manual chapter for site module. a. It currently starts "Importing this module will append site-specific paths to the module search path." Add "inject 'help' into builtins and " after append. Then add a short explanation paragraph before the search path stuff. Something like "This module contains a class (_Helper) that wraps function pydoc.help. An instance of the class is bound to name 'help' in the builtins module." A recent discussion on pydev or maybe python-list (in the thread mentioned above?) implied that one could usefully make another instance of _Helper or maybe a subclass thereof. I did not pay enough attention, though, to really get it. b. It currently ends with "XXX Update documentation XXX document python -m site –user-base –user-site" ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 111426 nosy: docs@python, eli.bendersky, tjreedy priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: some problems with the documentation of pydoc type: behavior versions: Python 3.1, Python 3.2 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue9364> _______________________________________

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[issue8913] Document that datetime.__format__ is datetime.strftime
by Brett Cannon 03 Apr '13

03 Apr '13

New submission from Brett Cannon <brett(a)python.org>: Documenting that would help get people using datetime objects with string.format more. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation keywords: easy messages: 107179 nosy: brett.cannon, docs@python priority: low severity: normal status: open title: Document that datetime.__format__ is datetime.strftime versions: Python 3.2 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8913> _______________________________________

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[issue8996] Add a default role to allow writing bare `len` instead of :func:`len`
by Éric Araujo 27 Oct '12

27 Oct '12

New submission from Éric Araujo <merwok(a)netwok.org>: Following a discussion on IRC: <birkenfeld> I would even prefer having more of just `object` instead of :func:`object` or :class:`object` I think it would be feasible to write a reST role that would use inspect or pydoc to find the type. It would not violate “In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess” if it only resolves `somebuiltin` and `some.fully.qualified.name`. Cons: People unfamiliar with reST might confuse ``code`` with `name`; interpreting the role may prove non-trivial (either requiring importing Python module to introspect them, or keeping a mapping of names→types in some file). Thoughts? ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 107790 nosy: docs@python, merwok priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Add a default role to allow writing bare `len` instead of :func:`len` type: feature request _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8996> _______________________________________

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[issue9767] Failures in json doc examples
by Terry J. Reedy 26 Oct '12

26 Oct '12

New submission from Terry J. Reedy <tjreedy(a)udel.edu>: I ran doctest on LibRef 17.2 json saved as .txt. There are 4 failures: 2 are clearly doc issues, the other 2 I do not know. I hope someone reads this who is already familiar DOC PATCHES dumps(2 + 1j, cls=ComplexEncoder) should be json.dumps(2 + 1j, cls=ComplexEncoder) and JSONEncoder().encode({"foo": ["bar", "baz"]}) should be json.JSONEncoder().encode({"foo": ["bar", "baz"]}) Needing similar additions in example code (not caught by doctest) are return JSONEncoder.default(self, o) for chunk in JSONEncoder().iterencode(bigobject): Those fixes leave 2 failures I an unclear about and hope a json expert will comment on. 1.''' Failed example: print(json.dumps({'4': 5, '6': 7}, sort_keys=True, indent=4)) Expected: { "4": 5, "6": 7 } Got: { "4": 5, "6": 7 } ''' The difference is that json puts a trailing space after '5,'. Should it? or should one be added to the doc? 2. ''' Failed example: list(ComplexEncoder().iterencode(2 + 1j)) Expected: ['[', '2.0', ', ', '1.0', ']'] Got: ['[2.0', ', 1.0', ']'] ''' Without knowing how the default iterencode interacts with the overwridden .default() method, I have no idea. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation, Library (Lib) messages: 115512 nosy: docs@python, terry.reedy priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Failures in json doc examples type: behavior _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue9767> _______________________________________

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[issue8652] Minor improvements to the "Handling Exceptions" part of the tutorial
by Marien Zwart 07 Jun '12

07 Jun '12

New submission from Marien Zwart <m_zwart(a)123mail.org>: Based on questions asked on freenode's #python by people reading the tutorial I would like to suggest two improvements to http://docs.python.org/tutorial/errors.html#handling-exceptions : - Mention the older "except SomeException, e:" syntax too, not just "except SomeException as e:". I have had people ask me to help them upgrade to a newer python because they thought their version of python did not support catching exception instances (their distro python being 2.5). A big fat warning that they're reading the Python 2.6 tutorial (with links to older tutorials) may also work. - Mention "except IOError as e" before mentioning "except IOError as (errno, strerror):". The latter is an advanced and relatively unusual trick, combining regular exception catching and unpacking. Those two concepts need to be explained before the combination is. I have had people ask me how to do "except KeyError as (key, insert_something_here):" because they thought they *always* needed those parens there. (perhaps just not mentioning unpacking here at all, using "except IOError as e:" and then using e.errno would make more sense, especially since "except IOError as (errno, strerror):" is a SyntaxError in python 3 and up (because of the unpacking) and python 2.5.x and down (because of the "as")...) I can try to write a patch to the documentation if you like. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 105218 nosy: docs@python, marienz priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Minor improvements to the "Handling Exceptions" part of the tutorial _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8652> _______________________________________

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[issue8617] Non-existent variables documented
by Dave Abrahams 09 May '12

09 May '12

New submission from Dave Abrahams <dave(a)boostpro.com>: http://docs.python.org/library/site.html#module-site mentions two variables that don't appear in my Python 2.6.5 installation's site module: PYTHONNOUSERSITE New in version 2.6. PYTHONUSERBASE New in version 2.6. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 104985 nosy: dabrahams, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Non-existent variables documented versions: Python 2.6 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8617> _______________________________________

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