[Python-Dev] Change in file() behavior in 2.5

[Michael Hudson]

"Michael Urman" <murman at gmail.com> writes:

> Hi folks,
>
> Between 2.4 and 2.5 the behavior of file or open with the mode 'wU'
> has changed. In 2.4 it silently works. in 2.5 it raises a ValueError.
> I can't find any more discussion on it in python-dev than tangential
> mentions in this thread:
>   http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-June/065939.html
>
> It is (buried) in NEWS. First I found:
>   Bug #1462152: file() now checks more thoroughly for invalid mode
>   strings and removes a possible "U" before passing the mode to the
>   C library function.
> Which seems to imply different behavior than the actual entry:
>   bug #967182: disallow opening files with 'wU' or 'aU' as specified by PEP
>   278.
>
> I don't see anything in pep278 about a timeline, and wanted to make
> sure that transitioning directly from working to raising an error was
> a desired change. 

That it was silently ignored was never intentional; it was a bug and
it was fixed.  I don't think having a release with deprecation
warnings and so on is worth it.

> This actually caught a bug in an application I work with, which used
> an explicit 'wU', that will currently stop working when people
> upgrade Python but not our application.

I would hope they wouldn't do that without careful testing anyway.

Cheers,
mwh

-- 
  No.  In fact, my eyeballs fell out just from reading this question,
  so it's a good thing I can touch-type.
                                    -- John Baez, sci.physics.research