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\[Originally posted to python-list but on further reflection and some feedback I think it might be more appropriate here.\]

I noticed when trying out Python's 2.6b2 release that the repr of Decimal has changed since 2.5.  On 2.5:

Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Mar  7 2008, 04:10:12)
\[GCC 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)\] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import decimal
>>> decimal.Decimal(7)
Decimal("7")
>>>

double quotes were used whereas on 2.6b2:

Python 2.6b2 (r26b2:65082, Jul 18 2008, 13:36:54)
[GCC 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

>>> import decimal
>>> decimal.Decimal(7)
Decimal('7')
>>>

single quotes are used.  Searching around I see this was done in r60773 with the log message:

Fix decimal repr which should have used single quotes like other reprs.


but I can't find any discussion other than that. 

My
problem is this breaks a bunch of doctests that were written assuming
the prior repr.  I can't just update the tests to assume the new single
quotes because they are for code that is supposed to run on everything
back to Python 2.3. 


So my questions:

Is this backwards-incompatible change really necessary and could it be reconsidered?

If
it's here to stay, is there some straightforward way that I am unaware
of to construct tests that use Decimal repr but will work correctly on
Python 2.3-2.6?


Thanks for any feedback,
Karen