[Python-Dev] Reasons behind misleading TypeError message when passing the wrong number of arguments to a method (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Thu May 20 01:47:33 CEST 2010

On 20/05/2010 00:42, Giampaolo Rodolà wrote:

class A:

... def echo(self, x): ... return x ... a = A() a.echo() Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in TypeError: echo() takes exactly 2 arguments (1 given)

I bet my last 2 cents this has already been raised in past but I want to give it a try and revamp the subject anyway. Is there a reason why the error shouldn't be adjusted to state that 1 argument is actually required instead of 2?

+1 - I've seen many newbies confused by this error and I sometimes do a double-take myself.

All the best,

Michael

--- Giampaolo http://code.google.com/p/pyftpdlib http://code.google.com/p/psutil

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