[Python-Dev] PEP 3101 implementation vs. documentation

[Terry Reedy]

On 6/11/2011 6:32 AM, Petri Lehtinen wrote:
> Nick Coghlan wrote:
> [snip]

It seems to me that the intent of the pep and the current doc is that 
field_names should match what one would write in code except that quotes 
are left off of literal string keys. Which is to say, the brackets [] 
serve as quote marks. So once '[' is found, the scanner must shift to 
'in index' mode and accept everything until a matching ']' is found, 
ending 'in index' mode.

The arg_name is documented as int or identifier and attribute_name as 
identifier, period. Anything more than that is an implementation 
accident which people should not count on in either future versions or 
alternate implementations.

I can imagine uses for nested replacement fields in the field_name or 
conversion spec. Ie, '{ {0}:{1}d'.format(2,5,333,444) == '  333', 
whereas changing the first arg to 3 would produce '  444'. If braces are 
allowed in either of the first two segments (outside of the 'quoted' 
within braces context), I think it should only be for the purpose of a 
feature addition that makes them significant.

It strikes me that the underlying problem is that the replacement_field 
scanner is, apparently, hand-crafted rather than being generated from 
the corresponding grammar, as is the overall Python lexer-parser. So it 
has no necessary connection with the grammar.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy