[issue6780] startswith error message is incomplete

[Sridhar Ratnakumar]

New submission from Sridhar Ratnakumar <sridharr at activestate.com>:

The `startswith` method accepts both string and tuple (not list). Yet 
the error message suggests that it expects (only) a character buffer 
object.

In Python-2.6:

>>> "foo".startswith(['fo', 'df'])
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: expected a character buffer object

In Python-3.x, the error message is different:

>>> "foo".startswith(["fo"])
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: Can't convert 'list' object to str implicitly

Aside: why not try to convert 'list' object to tuple?

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 91942
nosy: srid
severity: normal
status: open
title: startswith error message is incomplete
type: behavior
versions: Python 2.6, Python 3.1

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue6780>
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