Is this a contradiction in the docs ?

[Pierre Barbier de Reuille]

Fuzzyman a écrit :
> The following two passages from the python documentation *appear* to
> contradict each other. Equally possible (or more likely !) is that I
> misunderstand it :
> 
> eval :
> This function can also be used to execute arbitrary code objects (such
> as those created by compile()). In this case pass a code object instead
> of a string. The code object must have been compiled passing 'eval' as
> the kind argument.
> 
> 
> compile:
> The kind argument specifies what kind of code must be compiled; it can
> be 'exec' if string consists of a sequence of statements, 'eval' if it
> consists of a single expression, or 'single' if it consists of a single
> interactive statement (in the latter case, expression statements that
> evaluate to something else than None will be printed).
> 
> The docs for compile say that if you are creating a code object from a
> sequence of statements you must use the kind argument 'exec'. Eval says
> that if you are using the eval function you must use 'eval' as your
> kind argument.
> 
> In practise I have found that using the eval function with code objects
> compiled with 'exec' as the kind argument works fine. Is this a 'bug'
> in the docs ?
> Regards,
> 
> Fuzzy
> http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml
> 

IMO, it's just logical the code sent to "eval" was compiled with "eval" 
as the kind argument. But don't forget the documentation is kind of 
"abstract" and that CPython is _just_ an implementation (ok, it's the 
reference implementation) of python. You'd better follow the doc if you 
want your code to work on other Python implementation (ie. JPython, ...).

Pierre