[Python-3000] Four new failing tests (original) (raw)

Adam Olsen rhamph at gmail.com
Sat Aug 11 22:46:07 CEST 2007

On 8/11/07, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:

> ====================================================================== > ERROR: testcharwrite (main.TestArrayWrites) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Traceback (most recent call last): > File "Lib/test/testcsv.py", line 648, in testcharwrite > a = array.array('u', string.letters) > ValueError: string length not a multiple of item size

I think some decision should be made wrt. string.letters. Clearly, string.letters cannot reasonably contain all letters (i.e. all characters of categories Ll, Lu, Lt, Lo). Or can it? Traditionally, string.letters contained everything that is a letter in the current locale. Still, computing this string might be expensive assuming you have to go through all Unicode code points and determine whether they are letters in the current locale. So I see the following options: 1. remove it entirely. Keep string.asciiletters instead 2. remove string.asciiletters, and make string.letters to be ASCII only. 3. Make string.letters contain all letters in the current locale. 4. Make string.letters truly contain everything that is classified as a letter in the Unicode database.

Wasn't unicodedata.ascii_letters suggested at one point (to eliminate the string module), or was that my imagination?

IMO, if there is a need for unicode or locale letters, we should provide a function to generate them as needed. It can be passed directly to set or whatever datastructure is actually needed. We shouldn't burden the startup cost with such a large datastructure unless absolutely necessary (nor should we use a property to load it when first needed; expensive to compute attribute and all that).

-- Adam Olsen, aka Rhamphoryncus

More information about the Python-3000 mailing list