[Python-Dev] Okay to document the "exec tuple" form of the exec statement in Python 2.7?

[Nick Coghlan]

On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 10:08 PM, Mark Dickinson <dickinsm at gmail.com> wrote:
> In Python 2, the 'exec' statement supports 'exec'-ing a (statement,
> globals, locals) tuple:
>
>>>> exec("print 2", {}, {})
> 2
>
> This isn't currently documented at:
> http://docs.python.org/reference/simple_stmts.html#the-exec-statement.
>  It's easy to fix the docs, but in doing so we'd effectively be
> blessing this form of exec as an official part of the language.  Do
> people think it's acceptable to add this to the docs, or are there
> good reasons for the 'exec tuple' form of the exec statement to remain
> an undocumented feature?
>
> See also http://bugs.python.org/issue16339.

If you can find an existing test for it, then definitely (although the
fact it didn't previously work on Jython suggests there may not be
one).

If there's no test, then I'd still be in favour of making it official
both by testing *and* documenting it, for the forward compatibility
benefits you mention on the tracker.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia