[Python-Dev] getattribute should require a string? (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Tue, 04 Dec 2001 10:32:27 -0500

> Is there any reason why people should be allowed to assign and > retrieve attributes with non-string names?

Not really, but why should we actively try to prevent it when it's easy to do self.dict[1] = 'a'? This means you can't rely on all attribute names being strings, and I'm not going to prevent that. The proper fix IMO for the bug you found is to be more careful when formatting the error message.

I take it back. All the other functions in object.c require the getattr/setattr argument to be a string or Unicode object. I'll fix object.getattribute and object.setattr (which are really PyObject_Generic{Get,Set}Attr) to do the same.

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