[ python-Feature Requests-1712419 ] Cannot use dict with unicode keys as keyword arguments

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Feature Requests item #1712419, was opened at 2007-05-03 22:49
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by gbrandl
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Category: Unicode
Group: None
>Status: Closed
>Resolution: Wont Fix
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: Viktor Ferenczi (complex)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: Cannot use dict with unicode keys as keyword arguments

Initial Comment:
Unicode strings cannot be used as keys in dictionaries passed as keyword argument to a function. For example:

Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Apr 18 2007, 08:51:08) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on
win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> def fn(**kw):
...     print repr(kw)
...
>>> fn(**{u'x':1})
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: fn() keywords must be strings
>>>

Unicode strings should be converted to str automatically using the site specific default encoding or something similar solution.

This bug caused problems when decoding dictionaries from data formats such as XML or JSON. Usually unicode strings are returned from such modules, such as simplejson. Manual encoding from unicode to str causes performance loss if this cannot be done by Python automatically.

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>Comment By: Georg Brandl (gbrandl)
Date: 2007-05-19 18:14

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Yeah, should be uncontroversial.

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Comment By: Raymond Hettinger (rhettinger)
Date: 2007-05-18 23:53

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Recommend closing this as not-a-bug. 

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Comment By: M.-A. Lemburg (lemburg)
Date: 2007-05-04 10:27

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Python (currently) does not allow non-ASCII identifiers, so it's not
surprising that Unicode parameter names don't work.

It's also a really bad idea to pass data from an AJAX XML or JSON request
directly to a function without doing at least some post-processing of the
data in order to prevent DOS attacks, code injection, etc.

dict((str(key), value) for key, value in kw.iteritems()) is all that's
needed for the above. 

BTW, I don't think those few micro-seconds really matter in the face of
XML or JSON decoding, network latency, etc. ;-)


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Comment By: Georg Brandl (gbrandl)
Date: 2007-05-04 04:10

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In any case, this is a feature request.

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