[Python-Dev] Re: [Patches] [Patch #102955] bltinmodule.c warning fix

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Tim Peters wrote:
> 
> [Andrew Kuchling]
> > Is it OK to refer to 8-bit strings under that name?
> > How about "expected an 8-bit string or Unicode string", when the
> > object passed to ord() isn't of the right type.
> >
> > Similarly, when the value is of the right type but has length>1,
> > the message is "ord() expected a character, length-%d string found".
> > Should that be "length-%d (string / unicode) found)"
> >
> > And should the type names be changed to '8-bit string'/'Unicode
> > string', maybe?
> 
> Actually, upon reflection I think it was a mistake to add all these "or
> Unicode" clauses to the error msgs to begin with.  Python used to have only
> one string type, we're saying that's also a hope for the future, and in the
> meantime I know I'd have no trouble understanding "string" as including both
> 8-bit strings and Unicode strings.
> 
> So we should say "8-bit string" or "Unicode string" when *only* one of those
> is allowable.  So
> 
>     "ord() expected string ..."
> 
> instead of (even a repaired version of)
> 
>     "ord() expected string or Unicode character ..."

I think this has to do with understanding that there are two
string types in Python 2.0 -- a novice won't notice this until
she sees the error message.

My understanding is similar to yours, "string" should mean
"any string object" and in cases where the difference between
8-bit string and Unicode matters, these should be referred to
as "8-bit string" and "Unicode string".

Still, I think it is a good idea to make people aware of the
possibility of passing Unicode objects to these functions, so
perhaps the idea of adding both possibilies to error messages
is not such a bad idea for 2.1. The next phases would be converting
all messages back to "string" and then convert all strings to
Unicode ;-)

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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