Mailman 3 July 2016 - docs

[issue26369] doc for unicode.decode and str.encode is unnecessarily confusing
by Ben Spiller May 30, 2020

May 30, 2020

New submission from Ben Spiller: It's well known that lots of people struggle writing correct programs using non-ascii strings in python 2.x, but I think one of the main reasons for this could be very easily fixed with a small addition to the documentation for str.encode and unicode.decode, which is currently quite vague. The decode/encode methods really make most sense when called on a unicode string i.e. unicode.encode() to produce a byte string, or on a byte string e.g. str.decode() to produce a unicode object from a byte string. However, the additional presence of the opposite methods str.encode() and unicode.decode() is quite confusing, and a frequent source of errors - e.g. calling str.encode('utf-8') first DECODES the str object (which might already be in utf8) to a unicode string **using the default encoding of "ascii"** (!) before ENCODING to a utf-8 byte str as requested, which of course will fail at the first stage with the classic error "UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte" if there are any non-ascii chars present. It's unfortunate that this initial decode/encode stage ignores both the "encoding" argument (used only for the subsequent encode/decode) and the "errors" argument (commonly used when the programmer is happy with a best-effort conversion e.g. for logging purposes). Anyway, given this behaviour, a lot of time would be saved by a simple sentence on the doc for str.encode()/unicode.decode() essentially warning people that those methods aren't that useful and they probably really intended to use str.decode()/unicode.encode() - the current doc gives absolutely no clue about this extra stage which ignores the input arguments and sues 'ascii' and 'strict'. It might also be worth stating in the documentation that the pattern (u.encode(encoding) if isinstance(u, unicode) else u) can be helpful for cases where you unavoidably have to deal with both kinds of input, string calling str.encode is such a bad idea. In an ideal world I'd love to see the implementation of str.encode/unicode.decode changed to be more useful (i.e. instead of using ascii, it would be more logical and useful to use the passed-in encoding to perform the initial decode/encode, and the apss-in 'errors' value). I wasn't sure if that change would be accepted so for now I'm proposing better documentation of the existing behaviour as a second-best. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 260359 nosy: benspiller, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: doc for unicode.decode and str.encode is unnecessarily confusing type: behavior versions: Python 2.7 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue26369> _______________________________________

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[issue23738] Clarify documentation of positional-only default values
by Martin Panter May 22, 2020

May 22, 2020

New submission from Martin Panter: This patch adds the PEP 457 positional-only slash “/” indicator to some function signatures in the documentation. I only looked at the the os, builtin, binascii, zlib and fcntl modules, and their functions where the documentation incorrectly suggests that they accept keyword arguments. For example, I changed eval(expression, globals=None, locals=None) to eval(expression, globals=None, locals=None, /) References: * Issue 22832: “fcntl” module changed to look like accepting keyword arguments * Ongoing discussion: <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2015-March/138847.html> There are many more instances where square brackets are used, or the arguments are mandatory. See the PEP for examples, but I do not think it is so important to “fix” them. I also fixed parameter name mismatches that I discovered for a quite a few functions that do take keyword arguments. One more thing I noticed, that I do not know how to fix, is the Argument Clinic signatures list invalid default values for zlib.compressobj(zdict=None) and os.utime(ns=None): >>> zlib.compressobj(zdict=None) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> TypeError: 'NoneType' does not support the buffer interface >>> os.utime("dummy", ns=None) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> TypeError: utime: 'ns' must be a tuple of two ints ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation files: pos-defaults.patch keywords: patch messages: 238890 nosy: docs@python, serhiy.storchaka, vadmium priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Clarify documentation of positional-only default values versions: Python 3.4, Python 3.5 Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file38632/pos-defaults.patch _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue23738> _______________________________________

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[issue18262] ZipInfo.external_attr are not documented
by anatoly techtonik May 17, 2020

May 17, 2020

New submission from anatoly techtonik: zipfile doesn't restore file attributes when extracting. Documentation should at least contain example how to do this manually, because the ony way to do this - through ZipInfo.external_attr is too cryptic. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 191447 nosy: docs@python, techtonik priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: ZipInfo.external_attr are not documented versions: Python 2.6, Python 2.7, Python 3.1, Python 3.2, Python 3.3, Python 3.4, Python 3.5 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue18262> _______________________________________

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[issue11425] Cleanup sample codes in tutorial.
by INADA Naoki May 14, 2020

May 14, 2020

New submission from INADA Naoki <songofacandy(a)gmail.com>: * Insert spaces around operators and after commas. * Split one liner blocks (ex. def foo(x, y): return x + y) to multi-line blocks. * Insert empty line after def block for scripts (not interactive mode). * Use new-style raise (s/ralse KeyboardInterrupt/raise KeyboardInterrupt()/) * Use x ** 3 instead of x * x * x. Attached patch is for Python 2.6. I'll make same changes for Python 3.1 if this patch is accepted. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation files: cleanup_tutorial_codes.patch keywords: patch messages: 130225 nosy: docs@python, naoki priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Cleanup sample codes in tutorial. versions: Python 2.6, Python 2.7, Python 3.1, Python 3.2, Python 3.3 Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file21027/cleanup_tutorial_codes.patch _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue11425> _______________________________________

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[issue23677] Mention dict and set comps in library reference
by Frank Millman May 10, 2020

May 10, 2020

New submission from Frank Millman: This is from the documentation at Section 4.6.4. Lists """ Lists may be constructed in several ways: Using a pair of square brackets to denote the empty list: [] Using square brackets, separating items with commas: [a], [a, b, c] Using a list comprehension: [x for x in iterable] Using the type constructor: list() or list(iterable) """ Comprehensions are mentioned as a constructor. This is from the documentation at Section 4.10. Mapping Types """ Dictionaries can be created by placing a comma-separated list of key: value pairs within braces, for example: {'jack': 4098, 'sjoerd': 4127} or {4098: 'jack', 4127: 'sjoerd'}, or by the dict constructor. class dict(**kwarg) class dict(mapping, **kwarg) class dict(iterable, **kwarg) Return a new dictionary initialized from an optional positional argument and a possibly empty set of keyword arguments. """ There is no mention of dictionary comprehensions. For consistency, I believe that the documentation for Dicts and Sets should mention comprehensions. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 238186 nosy: FrankMillman, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Mention dict and set comps in library reference versions: Python 3.4 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue23677> _______________________________________

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[issue26817] Docs for StringIO should link to io.BytesIO
by Thomas Guettler May 10, 2020

May 10, 2020

New submission from Thomas Guettler: I think a warning at the top of StringIO docs is needed. And it should link to io.BytesIO. Maybe even deprecate StringIO and cStringIO in Python2? StringIO docs: https://docs.python.org/2/library/stringio.html io.BytesIO docs: https://docs.python.org/2/library/io.html#io.BytesIO I would like to see this at the top of StringIO: {{{ Please use io.BytesIO and io.StringIO since this module is not supported in Python3 }} ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 263917 nosy: docs@python, guettli priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Docs for StringIO should link to io.BytesIO versions: Python 2.7 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue26817> _______________________________________

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[issue21596] asyncio.wait fails when futures list is empty
by Sebastian Kreft May 4, 2020

May 4, 2020

New submission from Sebastian Kreft: Passing an empty list/set of futures to asyncio.wait raises an Exception, which is a little annoying in some use cases. Probably this was the intended behavior as I see there's a test case for that. If such, then I would propose to document that behavior. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 219290 nosy: Sebastian.Kreft.Deezer, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: asyncio.wait fails when futures list is empty versions: Python 3.4 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue21596> _______________________________________

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[issue8940] *HTTPServer need a summary page with API inheritance table
by anatoly techtonik April 27, 2020

April 27, 2020

New submission from anatoly techtonik <techtonik(a)gmail.com>: The abundance of methods and hierarchy depth of various servers from "Internet Protocols and Support" section makes it extremely hard to navigate information. You need a strong OOP background to be able to use this doc effectively, as examples are not intuitive otherwise. Usually you need a decent IDE (such as Eclipse) to get a picture of class hierarchy and a table of all available methods with a mark where they were inherited from. Such table (at least Class Hierarchy view screenshot from Eclipse) should be available in reference for descendant classes. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 107321 nosy: docs@python, techtonik priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: *HTTPServer need a summary page with API inheritance table versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.1, Python 3.2 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8940> _______________________________________

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[issue14418] Document differences in SocketServer between Python 2.6 and 2.7
by Geoffrey Bache April 27, 2020

April 27, 2020

New submission from Geoffrey Bache <gjb1002(a)users.sourceforge.net>: Here I'm referring to the section about RequestHandler objects under the SocketServer page. http://docs.python.org/release/2.7.2/library/socketserver.html#requesthandl… This appears to be the same in Python 2.6 and Python 2.7. But the objects don't behave the same, in two respects: 1) For finish() "If setup() or handle() raise an exception, this function will not be called." This is true in Python 2.6. It appears to no longer be true in Python 2.7, where finish() is called in a "finally" clause. 2) For handle(). "The default implementation does nothing". This is true up to a point, but using the default implementation has different effects. Specifically, if I try to read from a socket when the server has not written anything, I get an exception in Python 2.6 and an empty string in Python 2.7. Consider this code: ## server.py from SocketServer import TCPServer, StreamRequestHandler import sys, socket server = TCPServer((socket.gethostname(), 0), StreamRequestHandler) host, port = server.socket.getsockname() address = host + ":" + str(port) print "Started server at", address sys.stdout.flush() server.serve_forever() ## client.py import sys, socket servAddr = sys.argv[1] host, port = servAddr.split(":") serverAddress = (host, int(port)) sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) sock.connect(serverAddress) sock.sendall("Some Message") sock.shutdown(1) response = sock.makefile().read() print "Got reply:", response sock.close() and compare the following: $ python2.7 server.py & Started server at 127.0.1.1:42759 $ python2.7 client.py 127.0.1.1:42759 Got reply: $ python2.6 server.py & Started server at 127.0.1.1:42758 $ python client.py 127.0.1.1:42758 Traceback (most recent call last): File "client.py", line 12, in <module> response = sock.makefile().read() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/socket.py", line 351, in read data = self._sock.recv(rbufsize) socket.error: [Errno 104] Connection reset by peer (doesn't matter which Python runs the client in the last case) I am unsure whether this is a bug in Python 2.6, or really what the reasoning behind the behaviour difference is, but I think this change in behaviour is worth a small note in the documentation (how it will behave if you try to read when nothing has been written) ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 156869 nosy: docs@python, gjb1002 priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: Document differences in SocketServer between Python 2.6 and 2.7 versions: Python 2.6, Python 2.7 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue14418> _______________________________________

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[issue26665] pip is not bootstrapped by default
by Axel Luttgens April 27, 2020

April 27, 2020

New submission from Axel Luttgens: Relevant page: https://docs.python.org/2/library/ensurepip.html One may read: In most cases, end users of Python shouldn’t need to invoke this module directly (as pip should be bootstrapped by default), but it may be needed if installing pip was skipped when installing Python (or when creating a virtual environment) or after explicitly uninstalling pip. As far as I correctly read the configure file that comes with the 2.7.11 tarball, the default is to behave as if --with-ensurepip=no had been passed. As a result, that sentence fragment: (as pip should be bootstrapped by default) may appear somewhat ambiguous for those compiling Python themselves. Perhaps could this one avoid some head scratching: (as packagers are expected to have bootstrapped pip) HTH, Axel ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 262610 nosy: Axel, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: pip is not bootstrapped by default type: enhancement versions: Python 2.7 _______________________________________ Python tracker <report(a)bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue26665> _______________________________________

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