[Python-Dev] Change in repr of Decimal in 2.6 (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Sat Jul 19 05:55:51 CEST 2008

This is an example of the problem with doctest -- it's easy to overspecify the tests. I don't think that whether the repr() of a Decimal uses single or double quotes should be considered a spec cast in stone by doctests.

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 8:19 PM, Raymond Hettinger <python at rcn.com> wrote:

From: Karen Tracey

I noticed when trying out Python's 2.6b2 release that the repr of Decimal has changed since 2.5. On 2.5: ... quotes were used whereas on 2.6b2: ... 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. Guido requested this change so that the Decimal repr would match the style used elsewhere (i.e. str(7) --> '7'). 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? A quick hack is to monkey patch the decimal module: >>> import decimal >>> decimal.Decimal.repr = lambda s: 'Decimal("%s")' % str(s) A better fix is to amend to doctests to not rely on the repr format. Instead of: >>> Decimal('7.1') Decimal("7.1") use: >>> print Decimal('7.1') 7.1 Raymond

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-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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