[Python-Dev] 2.5 status

[Neal Norwitz]

On 9/5/06, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:
>
> > [MAL]
> > The proper fix would be to introduce a tp_unicode slot and let
> > this decide what to do, ie. call .__unicode__() methods on instances
> > and use the .__name__ on classes.
>
> That was my bug reaction  and what I said on the bug report.  Kind of
> surprised one doesn't already exist.
>
> > I think this would be the right way to go for Python 2.6. For
> > Python 2.5, just dropping this .__unicode__ method on exceptions
> > is probably the right thing to do.
>
> Neal, do you want to rip it out or should I?

Is removing __unicode__ backwards compatible with 2.4 for both
instances and exception classes?

Does everyone agree this is the proper approach?  I'm not familiar
with this code.  Brett, if everyone agrees (ie, remains silent),
please fix this and add tests and a NEWS entry.

Everyone should be looking for incompatibilities with previous
versions.  Exceptions are new and deserve special attention.  Lots of
the internals of strings (8-bit and unicode) and the struct module
changed and should be tested thoroughly.  I'm sure there are a bunch
of other things I'm not remembering.  The compiler is also an obvious
target to verify your code still works.

We're stuck with anything that makes it into 2.5, so now is the time
to fix these problems.

n