[Python-Dev] Fwd: Change in repr of Decimal in 2.6

[Karen Tracey]

On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 10:52 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

> >>> f.clean('1') == Decimal('1')
> True
>

Ah, yes, why didn't I think of that?


>
> Since 'True' is a keyword, and Guido is *very* reluctant to even add
> keywords, let alone change their spelling, I think you can depend on that
> working indefinitely.  Similarly, if you now have
>
> >>> type(a)
> <type 'int'>
>
> you test will fail in 3.0 which instead prints '<class 'int'>.  But
>
> >>>type(a) is int
> True
>
> will continue working.
>
> Doctest has two quite different uses.  One is to check text with
> interactive examples to make sure there are no mistakes in the examples.
>  For that, printing representations is usually the natural style.  Then one
> must accept that representations change faster that object behavior.
>
> The other use is to check code.  For that, the more stilted  style is more
> future-proof.  For text doing double duty as a formal reference and code
> test, I would go for cross-version dependability.
>
>
Thanks, I see your point about the different styles.   I think we have a
fair number of tests that use the print-style (probably because that's
easiest, and then people see that style everywhere and do the same when
adding new tests) when to be future proof they really should be using the
alternative.

Karen
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