[Python-Dev] Int FutureWarnings and other 2.4 TODOs

Tim Peters tim.one at comcast.net
Sat Nov 29 22:24:21 EST 2003


[Guido]
> ...
> (1) PEP 237 promises that after the new semantics are introduced for
>     hex/oct literals and conversions, and left shifts, operations that
>     cause a different result than before will produce a warning that
>     is on by default.  Given the pain we've suffered through the
>     warnings in 2.3 about this stuff, I propose to forget about these
>     warnings.  The new semantics are clear and consistent, warnings
>     would just cause more distress, and code first ported to 2.3 will
>     already have silenced the warnings.

+1, and especially since it looks like 2.3 is going to become the next 1.5.2
(i.e., the version everyone flocks to, and then badgers you about for the
next 20 years <wink>).

> (2) PEP 237 promises that repr() of a long should no longer show a
>     trailing 'L'.  This is not yet implemented (i.e., repr() of a long
>     still has a trailing 'L').  First, past experience suggests that
>     quite a bit of end user code will break, and it may easily break
>     silently: there used to be code that did str(x)[:-1] (knowing x
>     was a long) to strip the 'L', which broke when str() of a long no
>     longer returned a trailing 'L'.  Apparently some of this code was
>     "fixed" by changing str() into repr(), and this code will now
>     break again.  Second, I *like* seeing a trailing L on longs,
>     especially when there's no reason for it to be a long: if some
>     expression returns 1L, I know something fishy may have gone on.

+1.  Changing string representations is always traumatic (lots of programs
rely on parsing them), and I have a hard time imagining what positive good
could come from stripping the 'L'.  Making that change for str(long) seemed
like pure loss from my POV (broke stuff and helped nothing).

> Any comments on these?  Should I update PEP 237 to reflect this?

The PEP should reflect The Plan, sure.




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