[Python-Dev] PEP 460 reboot

Ethan Furman ethan at stoneleaf.us
Mon Jan 13 17:36:05 CET 2014


On 01/13/2014 08:09 AM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Jan 2014 07:59:10 -0800
> Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 3:41 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>>> What is the use case for embedding a quoted ASCII-encoded representation
>>> in a byte stream?
>>
>> It doesn't crash but produces undesired output (always, not only when
>> the data is non-ASCII) that gives the developer a hint to think about
>> encoding to bytes.
>
> But why is it better to give a hint by producing undesired output (which
> may actually go unnoticed for some time and produce issues down the
> road), rather than simply by raising TypeError?

You mean crash all the time?  I'd be fine with that for both the str case and the bytes case.  But's probably too late 
to change the str case, and the bytes case should mirror what str does.


> By that token we may simply insert an error string ("CAUTION: YOU MISS
> AN ENCODING HERE"), rather than the ascii() representation of the
> argument.

Well, the ascii repr is at least some clue as to where.  A generic message would be no clue at all.

--
~Ethan~


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