Mailman 3 September 2011 - docs

[issue11233] clarifying Availability: Unix
by Sandro Tosi 15 Oct '18

15 Oct '18

New submission from Sandro Tosi <sandro.tosi(a)gmail.com>: Hi, following up http://mail.python.org/pipermail/docs/2011-February/003083.html we have a chat on #python-dev on the topic, the situation is - all started with os.lchmod() and as.lchflags() methods not available on a Debian system - that's because POSIX does not require those functions and then Linux systems don't provide them - so we then thought about clarifying, only for those 2 methods, that they might not be available with a format like "availability: some unix systems" - then we noticed that on top of os doc there's a notice "An “Availability: Unix” note means that this function is commonly found on Unix systems. It does not make any claims about its existence on a specific operating system." and so we thought about linking every 'Availability: Unix' to that note - or transform that not in a footnote and link every 'Availability: Unix' for functions that might not be present to that footnote. It's enough for the conversation dump: ideas/suggestions? :) ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 128746 nosy: docs@python, sandro.tosi priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: clarifying Availability: Unix _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue11233> _______________________________________

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[issue12743] C API marshalling doc contains XXX
by JJeffries 27 Jul '18

27 Jul '18

New submission from JJeffries <jamesjeffries1(a)gmail.com>: The Python C API manual page for data marshaling contains the following paragraph. XXX What about error detection? It appears that reading past the end of the file will always result in a negative numeric value (where that’s relevant), but it’s not clear that negative values won’t be handled properly when there’s no error. What’s the right way to tell? Should only non-negative values be written using these routines? I suggest that the XXX should be removed as it is unclear why it's there. Patch to follow in the next couple of days if others agree. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 141959 nosy: JJeffries, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: C API marshalling doc contains XXX _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue12743> _______________________________________

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[issue11015] Bring test.support docs up to date
by Nick Coghlan 11 Feb '18

11 Feb '18

New submission from Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan(a)gmail.com>: The test.support docs are there to help CPython devs with writing good unit tests more easily. There are a few additions we've made in recent years that haven't made it into the .rst file, so it is easy to miss useful tools if you don't go looking through the module source code. There are some other helper modules (such as test.script_helper) that could also stand to be made easier to find. Fixing this is just a matter of doing a pass through test.support and the test directory looking for things that might be worth mentioning in the test package docs. ---------- assignee: docs@python keywords: easy messages: 127086 nosy: docs@python, ncoghlan priority: normal severity: normal stage: needs patch status: open title: Bring test.support docs up to date type: behavior _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue11015> _______________________________________

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[issue8722] Documentation for __getattr__
by Paul Davis 05 Feb '18

05 Feb '18

New submission from Paul Davis <paul.joseph.davis(a)gmail.com>: The docs for __getattr__ in the object model section could be more specific on the behavior when a @property raises an AttributeError and there is a custom __getattr__ defined. Specifically, it wasn't exactly clear that __getattr__ would be invoked after a @property was found and evaluated. The attached script demonstrates the issue on OS X 10.6, Python 2.6.1 I'm thinking something along the lines of: If the attribute search encounters an AttributeError (perhaps due to a @property raising the error) the search is considered a failure and __getattr__ is invoked. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation files: example.py messages: 105790 nosy: Paul.Davis, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Documentation for __getattr__ type: feature request versions: Python 2.6 Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file17349/example.py _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8722> _______________________________________

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[issue11023] pep 227 missing text
by Alan Isaac 26 Jan '18

26 Jan '18

New submission from Alan Isaac <alan.isaac(a)gmail.com>: In PEP 227 missing text is marked with XXX. Most of this is just calls for examples and elaboration. However under the Implementation section XXX marks a substantive question about the documentation. Fixing this may be low priority, but a tracker search suggested it is currently not even being tracked ... ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 127184 nosy: aisaac, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: pep 227 missing text type: feature request _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue11023> _______________________________________

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[issue12706] timeout sentinel in ftplib and poplib
by Senthil Kumaran 25 Jan '18

25 Jan '18

New submission from Senthil Kumaran <senthil(a)uthcode.com>: - ftplib and poplib, has them as timeout=None, while they default to socket._GLOBAL_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT object. This is wrong; someone may pass None thinking it will trigger the default behaviour, and have nasty surprises. ---------- assignee: docs@python messages: 141740 nosy: docs@python, orsenthil priority: normal severity: normal stage: needs patch status: open title: timeout sentinel in ftplib and poplib type: behavior versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.2, Python 3.3 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue12706> _______________________________________

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[issue11260] smtpd-as-a-script feature should be documented and should use argparse
by Xavier Morel 10 Jan '18

10 Jan '18

New submission from Xavier Morel <xavier.morel(a)masklinn.net>: argparse has been merged to the standard library in 3.2, and (tell me if I'm wrong) would therefore be the "best-practices" way to parse command-line arguments. Numerous stdlib modules can be used as scripts, but they tend to have ad-hoc documentation (if they are at all documented) and arguments parsing (using any of the 4 available methods in Python: straight from sys.argv, getopt, optparse and argparse). I picked smtpd as a first shot since it does something useful (SMTP proxy) and has a pretty good (if ad-hoc) command-line documentation. smtpd is currently using getopt for its options parsing and the argument parsing is very cleanly factored: the port only had to replace the implementation of the `parseargs` function (and add and remove some helpers). * The port keeps the existing arguments semantics (including the mandatory host:port syntax for the local and remote specs if overridden) * The port tries to maintain the old error messages, but due to the way argparse works (or the way I used it for the specs) the parity is not perfect when providing incorrect specs * The CLI help uses argparse's formatting, and the documentation for the local and remote specs was set on these arguments rather than as an epilog. The version string was also removed from the help screen * Because they are set by argparse's arguments validation, the status codes on incorrect arguments are slightly different: - running smtpd.py as a regular user without the `--nosetuid` flag still exits with status 1 - providing incorrect spec formats (missing or non-int port) or providing too many positional arguments (3 or more) now exits with status 2 (formerly 1) ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation, Library (Lib) files: smtpd-to-argparse.diff keywords: patch messages: 128917 nosy: barry, docs@python, xmorel priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: smtpd-as-a-script feature should be documented and should use argparse versions: Python 3.3 Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file20812/smtpd-to-argparse.diff _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue11260> _______________________________________

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[issue11253] autodocument first appearance of ctypes.wintypes constants
by anatoly techtonik 08 Nov '17

08 Nov '17

New submission from anatoly techtonik <techtonik(a)gmail.com>: I've just noticed that my application is incompatible with Python 2.5, because ctypes.wintypes is missing SHORT constants. However, I can't find the information when these symbols were introduced first. To prevent such confusion in future it would be nice to extract symbol information for each Python release and automatically include the version of the first appearance in documentation. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 128893 nosy: docs@python, techtonik priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: autodocument first appearance of ctypes.wintypes constants versions: Python 2.5, 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/issue11253> _______________________________________

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[issue12067] Doc: remove errors about mixed-type comparisons.
by Terry J. Reedy 24 Aug '17

24 Aug '17

New submission from Terry J. Reedy <tjreedy(a)udel.edu>: Current 3.2 doc, 5.9. Comparisons, has this paragraph about mixed-type comparisons. "The operators <, >, ==, >=, <=, and != compare the values of two objects. The objects need not have the same type. If both are numbers, they are converted to a common type. Otherwise, the == and != operators *always* consider objects of different types to be unequal, while the <, >, >= and <= operators raise a TypeError when comparing objects of different types that do not implement these operators for the given pair of types. You can control comparison behavior of objects of non-built-in types by defining rich comparison methods like __gt__(), described in section Basic customization." Sentence 3: "If both are numbers, they are converted to a common type." I suspect it would be more true to say 'common internal type' as I would not think it a language requirement to produce Python objects. In any case, I think it is only true for built-in number types, and I do not see that qualification anywhere previously. That aside, it does not appear to be true for Decimals and Fractions in 2.7.1. Sentence 4: first clause is only true for built-in types. That qualification is not obvious to everyone, as evidenced by a current python-list sub thread. For 2.7, which has a different continuation, I suggest adding 'built-in' before 'objects of'. For 3.2/3, I suggest deleting '*always*' and adding a comma after 'TypeError' so that the 'when' condition applies to equality comparisons also. After discussion about same-type comparisons, there is another paragraph about mixed-type comparison: "Comparison of objects of the differing types depends on whether either of the types provide explicit support for the comparison. Most numeric types can be compared with one another, but comparisons of float and Decimal are not supported to avoid the inevitable confusion arising from representation issues such as float('1.1') being inexactly represented and therefore not exactly equal to Decimal('1.1') which is. When cross-type comparison is not supported, the comparison method returns NotImplemented. This can create the illusion of non-transitivity between supported cross-type comparisons and unsupported comparisons. For example, Decimal(2) == 2 and 2 == float(2) but Decimal(2) != float(2)." I suggest deleting this entirely. The first sentence and first clause of the second repeat what was said above. The rest is obsolete as float/decimal comparisons *are* implemented in 2.7.1 and 3.2.0. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation keywords: easy messages: 135873 nosy: docs@python, rhettinger, terry.reedy priority: normal severity: normal stage: needs patch status: open title: Doc: remove errors about mixed-type comparisons. versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.2, Python 3.3 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue12067> _______________________________________

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[issue12887] Documenting all SO_* constants in socket module
by Sandro Tosi 22 Aug '17

22 Aug '17

New submission from Sandro Tosi <sandro.tosi(a)gmail.com>: spinning off msg142613 - it would be interesting to have in the socket module documentation also an explanation of all the several SO_ flags available; even a compact table could be ok; or even a link to a remote reference for them. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 143428 nosy: docs@python, eric.araujo, ezio.melotti, sandro.tosi priority: normal severity: normal stage: needs patch status: open title: Documenting all SO_* constants in socket module versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.2, Python 3.3 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue12887> _______________________________________

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