Terry J. Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> added the comment: Better specifying requirements is good. A few comments: - The second argument is an error message; it is converted to a string object. + The second argument is an error message; it is decoded to a string object + with ``'utf-8'`` encoding. I would write the change as + The second argument is a utf-8 encoded error message; it is decoded to a string object. I the second part (what the function will do with the arg) really needed? I think in the current version, it serves to indirectly specify that the arg in not to be a string, but bytes. If the specific encoding required is specified, that also says bytes, making 'will be decoded' redundant and irrelevant. ------------------------------- + a Python exception (class, not an instance). *format* should be a string + encoded to ISO-8859-1, containing format codes, *format* should be ISO-8859-1 encoded bytes containing format codes, although I am not clear about the implications of that. Are not all format code ascii chars? -------------------------------- I do not really like 'encoded to', but 'decoded to' is wrong. 'will be decoded from xxx bytes' is better. I think there should be a general discussion somewhere about bytes arguments and the terminology that will be used. ---------- nosy: +terry.reedy _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue9738> _______________________________________