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Sun Feb 23 23:54:08 CET 2014 · https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2014-February/132726.html

On 24 Feb 2014 07:39, "Antoine Pitrou" <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 12:42:59 -0800
> Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> > On 02/23/2014 03:33 AM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> > > On Sat, 22 Feb 2014 17:56:50 -0800
> > > Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> ``%a`` will call :func:``ascii()`` on the interpolated value's
:func:``repr()``.
> > >> This is intended as a debugging aid, rather than something that
should be used
> > >> in production.  Non-ascii values will be encoded to either ``\xnn``
or ``\unnnn``
> > >> representation.
> > >
> > > Why is "%a" here? I don't remember: was this discussed before?
> > > "Intended as a debugging aid" sounds like a weak justification to me.
> >
> > https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2014-January/131808.html
> >
> > The idea being if we offer %a, folks won't be tempted to abuse
__bytes__.
>
> Which folks are we talking about? This sounds gratuitous.

It's a harm containment tactic, based on the assumption people *will* want
to include the output of ascii() in binary protocols containing ASCII
segments, regardless of whether or not we consider their reasons for doing
so to be particularly good.

If %a exists, then the path of least resistance to doing this only affects
the format string, and it can handle arbitrary types (except bytes under -b
and -bb).

By contrast, if %a doesn't exist, then it becomes more attractive to use %s
in the format string and define an ASCII assuming  __bytes__ implementation
on a custom type.

That latter scenario is substantially more problematic, since __bytes__
implementations assuming ASCII compatibility is categorically wrong, while
embedding an ASCII representation in a binary protocol that includes ASCII
compatible segments is merely a bit strange.

Cheers,
Nick.

>
> Also, I don't understand what debugging is supposed to be in the
> context of bytes formatting. You print debugging output to a text
> stream, not a bytes stream. And you certainly *don't* print debugging
> output into a wire protocol.
>
> Regards
>
> Antoine.
>
>
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Showing content from https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2014-February/132726.html below:

[Python-Dev] PEP 461: Adding % formatting to bytes and bytearray -- Final, Take 2