docs April 2015

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26 participants
566 discussions

[issue13368] Possible problem in documentation of module subprocess, method send_signal

by Eli Bendersky

New submission from Eli Bendersky <eliben(a)gmail.com>: docs@ list report by Daniel Dieterle: in the documentation (http://docs.python.org/library/subprocess.html#subprocess.Popen.send_signal) is a bug. CTRL_C_EVENT can not be sent to processes started with a creationflags parameter which includes CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP. Why can be read in the msdn documentation http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms683155%28v=vs.85%… . A workaround using CTRL_C_EVENT nevertheless is described here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7085604/sending-c-to-python-subprocess-o… -- I do not know why the subprocess.CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP parameter was introduced. But it is useless for terminating a process with os.kill() in combination with signal.SIGTERM, which corresponds to a CTRL-C-EVENT. A CTRL-C-EVENT is only forwarded to the process if the process group is zero. Therefore the Note in the documentation on Popen.send_signal() is wrong. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 147272 nosy: docs@python, eli.bendersky priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Possible problem in documentation of module subprocess, method send_signal versions: Python 2.7 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue13368> _______________________________________

7 months

[issue16954] Add docstrings for ElementTree module

by Serhiy Storchaka

New submission from Serhiy Storchaka: Perhaps almost all Doxygen comments in ElementTree module should be converted to docstrings. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation, XML messages: 179881 nosy: docs@python, eli.bendersky, serhiy.storchaka priority: normal severity: normal stage: needs patch status: open title: Add docstrings for ElementTree module type: enhancement versions: Python 3.4 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue16954> _______________________________________

7 months

[issue13433] String format documentation contains error regarding %g

by Christian Iversen

New submission from Christian Iversen <ci(a)sikkerhed.org>: The documentation for string format options state that both %f, %g and %e default to 6 digits after the decimal point. In fact, %g always seems to use 5 digits by default: >>> "%g" % 2.1234567 '2.12346' >>> "%f" % 2.1234567 '2.123457' >>> "%e" % 2.1234567 '2.123457e+00' But something much more insidious is wrong, because even when explicitly told how many digits to have, %g is one off: >>> "%.6g" % 2.1234567 '2.12346' >>> "%.6f" % 2.1234567 '2.123457' >>> "%.6e" % 2.1234567 '2.123457e+00' This can't be right? ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 147940 nosy: Christian.Iversen, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: String format documentation contains error regarding %g type: behavior versions: Python 2.6, Python 2.7 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue13433> _______________________________________

7 months, 1 week

[issue20464] Update distutils sample config file in Doc/install/index.rst

by Zachary Ware

New submission from Zachary Ware: >From docs@: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 2:56 AM, Peter Bröcker <peter.broecker(a)uni-koeln.de> wrote: > Hi, > > I have tried to set up the distutils config files for a custom module > installation. Using the suggested snippet from > > http://docs.python.org/2/install/ > > [install] > install-base=$HOME/python > install-purelib=lib > install-platlib=lib.$PLAT > install-scripts=scripts > install-data=data did not work for me. > > Instead, I had to add install-headers and additionally modify all paths > to include $base: > > [install] > install-base=/some/dir > install-purelib=$base/lib > install-platlib=$base/lib.$PLAT > install-scripts=$base/scripts > install-headers=$base/include > install-data=$base/data > > > I'm unsure if this is actually a bug, but I could only resolve this with > the help of this answer on stackoverflow: > http://stackoverflow.com/a/12768721 > > Best regards, > Peter ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Distutils, Documentation messages: 209829 nosy: docs@python, zach.ware priority: normal severity: normal stage: test needed status: open title: Update distutils sample config file in Doc/install/index.rst type: behavior versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.3, Python 3.4 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue20464> _______________________________________

7 months, 3 weeks

[issue22401] argparse: 'resolve' conflict handler damages the actions of the parent parser

by paul j3

New submission from paul j3: When there's a conflict involving an argument that was added via 'parents', and the conflict handler is 'resolve', the action in the parent parser may be damaged, rendering that parent unsuitable for further use. In this example, 2 parents have the same '--config' argument: parent1 = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False) parent1.add_argument('--config') parent2 = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False) parent2.add_argument('--config') parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(parents=[parent1,parent2], conflict_handler='resolve') The actions of the 3 parsers are (from the ._actions list): (id, dest, option_strings) parent1: [(3077384012L, 'config', [])] # empty option_strings parent2: [(3076863628L, 'config', ['--config'])] parser: [(3076864428L, 'help', ['-h', '--help']), (3076863628L, 'config', ['--config'])] # same id The 'config' Action from 'parent1' is first copied to 'parser' by reference (this is important). When 'config' from 'parent2' is copied, there's a conflict. '_handle_conflict_resolve()' attempts to remove the first Action, so it can add the second. But in the process it ends up deleting the 'option_strings' values from the original action. So now 'parent1' has an action in its 'optionals' argument group with an empty option_strings list. It would display as an 'optionals' but parse as a 'positionals'. 'parent1' can no longer be safely used as a parent for another (sub)parser, nor used as a parser itself. The same sort of thing would happen, if, as suggested in the documentation: "Sometimes (e.g. when using parents_) it may be useful to simply override any older arguments with the same option string." In test_argparse.py, 'resolve' is only tested once, with a simple case of two 'add_argument' statements. The 'parents' class tests a couple of cases of conflicting actions (for positionals and optionals), but does nothing with the 'resolve' handler. ------------------------------ Possible fixes: - change the documentation to warn against reusing such a parent parser - test the 'resolve' conflict handler more thoroughly - rewrite this conflict handler so it does not modify the action in the parent - possibly change the 'parents' mechanism so it does a deep copy of actions. References: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25818651/argparse-conflict-resolver-for-… http://bugs.python.org/issue15271 argparse: repeatedly specifying the same argument ignores the previous ones http://bugs.python.org/issue19462 Add remove_argument() method to argparse.ArgumentParser http://bugs.python.org/issue15428 add "Name Collision" section to argparse docs ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation, Library (Lib), Tests messages: 226862 nosy: docs@python, paul.j3 priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: argparse: 'resolve' conflict handler damages the actions of the parent parser type: behavior versions: Python 3.5 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue22401> _______________________________________

8 months

[issue8595] Unexpected default timeout in http-client-related libraries

by Julian

New submission from Julian <python_org(a)somethinkodd.com>: Since Python 2.6, httplib has offered a timeout parameter for fetches. As the documentation explains, if this parameter is not provided, it uses the global default. What the document doesn't explain is httplib builds on top of the socket library. The socket library has a default timeout of None (i.e. forever). This may be an appropriate default for general sockets, but it is a poor default for httplib; typical http clients would use a timeout in the 2-10 second range. This problem is propagated up to urllib2, which sits on httplib, and further obscures that the default might be unsuitable. >From an inspection of the manuals, Python 3.0.1 suffers from the same problem except, the names have changed. urllib.response sits on http.client. I, for one, made a brutal mistake of assuming that the "global default" would be some reasonable default for fetching web pages; I didn't have any specific timeout in mind, and was happy for the library to take care of it. Several million successful http downloads later, my server application thread froze waiting forever when talking to a recalcitrant web-server. I imagine others have fallen for the same trap. While an ideal solution would be for httplib and http.client to use a more generally acceptable default, I can see it might be far too late to make such a change without breaking existing applications. Failing that, I would recommend that the documentation for httplib, urllib, urllib2, http.client and urllib.request (+ any other similar libraries sitting on socket? FTP, SMTP?) be changed to highlight that the default global timeout, sans deliberate override, is to wait a surprisingly long time. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation, Library (Lib) messages: 104763 nosy: docs@python, oddthinking priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Unexpected default timeout in http-client-related libraries type: behavior versions: Python 2.6, Python 2.7, Python 3.1 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8595> _______________________________________

9 months

[issue8822] datetime naive and aware types should have a well-defined definition that can be cross-referenced

by anatoly techtonik

New submission from anatoly techtonik <techtonik(a)gmail.com>: 'naive' and 'aware' are key datetime types - they need a proper definition and anchor for crossrefences. If you take a look at http://docs.python.org/library/datetime.html - the definition of distinction between them is too vague and this seeds of uncertainty grow through the rest of the doc. It is not said how to make non-naive object, how to detect if object of naive or aware. All this stuff is very important for troubleshooting datetims issues in Python projects. It needs a proper documentation. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 106524 nosy: docs@python, techtonik priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: datetime naive and aware types should have a well-defined definition that can be cross-referenced _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8822> _______________________________________

9 months

[issue23522] Misleading note in Statistics module documentation

by Jake

New submission from Jake: In the statistics module documentation, there is a note that states that "The mean is strongly affected by outliers and is not a robust estimator for central location: the mean is not necessarily a typical example of the data points. For more robust, although less efficient, measures of central location, see median() and mode()" https://docs.python.org/3/library/statistics.html While I appreciate the intention, this is quite misleading. The implication is that the mean, median and mode are different ways to estimate one "central location", however, in reality they are very different things (albeit which refer to a similar notion). The sample mean is an unbiased estimator of the true mean but it need not be unbiased as an estimator of the true median or modes and vice versa for the median and mode. To make this clearer I would rephrase to "The mean is strongly affected by outliers and is not necessarily representative of the central tendency of the data. For cases with large outliers or very low sample size, see median() and mode()" Apologies if this is seen as frivolous, but statistics can be hard enough to remain very clear about even when the words are used precisely. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 236612 nosy: Journeyman08, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Misleading note in Statistics module documentation type: enhancement versions: Python 3.4 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue23522> _______________________________________

9 months, 1 week

[issue14586] TypeError: truncate() takes no keyword arguments

by Guy Taylor

New submission from Guy Taylor <thebigguy.co.uk(a)gmail.com>: The Python docs suggest that io.IOBase.truncate' should take a keyword argument of 'size'. However this causes a 'TypeError': TypeError: truncate() takes no keyword arguments Suggest that the docs are changed to 'truncate(size)' or CPython is changed to allow the keyword. http://docs.python.org/py3k/library/io.html?highlight=truncate#io.IOBase.tr… http://docs.python.org/library/io.html?highlight=truncate#io.IOBase.truncate ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation, Interpreter Core files: test.py messages: 158308 nosy: TheBiggerGuy, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: TypeError: truncate() takes no keyword arguments type: behavior versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.2 Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file25219/test.py _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue14586> _______________________________________

9 months, 2 weeks

[issue15104] abusive language in __name__ description

by anatoly techtonik

New submission from anatoly techtonik <techtonik(a)gmail.com>: http://docs.python.org/library/__main__.html "It is this environment in which the idiomatic “conditional script” stanza causes a script to run" ?!? ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 163140 nosy: docs@python, techtonik priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: abusive language in __name__ description _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue15104> _______________________________________

9 months, 4 weeks

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docs April 2015