[Python-Dev] "buffer interface" messages

[Georg Brandl]

Am 03.12.2010 17:57, schrieb Antoine Pitrou:
> On Sat, 4 Dec 2010 02:45:42 +1000
> Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 2:28 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>> > On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 10:11:29 -0500
>> > "R. David Murray" <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > >>> 'abc'.transform('hex')
>> >> > TypeError: 'str' does not support the buffer interface
>> >> > >>> b'abc'.transform('rot13')
>> >> > TypeError: expected an object with the buffer interface
>> >>
>> >> I find these 'buffer interface' error messages to be the most confusing
>> >> error message I get out of Python3 no matter what context they show up
>> >> in.  I have no idea what they are telling me.  That issue is more
>> >> general than transform/untransform, but perhaps it could be fixed
>> >> for transform/untransform in particular.
>> >
>> > I agree. "buffer interface" is a technicality that the Python user
>> > doesn't do about (unless (s)he also writes C extensions). How about
>> > "expected a bytes-compatible object"?
>> 
>> Why not "binary data interface"? That's what they're actually looking for.
> 
> I don't think it's more understandable, since it's not a well-known
> Python concept.
> (and in this specific case, the transform() method is on str and bytes,
> not on arbitrary bytes-like objects)

"object that can be handled as bytes"?
"object that provides bytes"?

>> It seems odd for 'rot13' to be throwing that error though.
> 
> Agreed.

rot13 is a str<->str codec.

Georg