A third-party module on PyPI for "fix-the-horrible-things-Outlook-does" could be useful. There is no way the standard library can or should keep up with the newest mangling techniques mail handlers employ in this week's version.
I don't understand what you mean by the current interpreter not telling you which character is bad. It puts a pointer right under the problem character in the error message. Nothing is being hidden, even if the code-manglers can do pretty insidious things... different in every version, for every sender, and for every recipient. On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 3:24 AM Steve Barnes <gadgetst...@live.co.uk> wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> > Sent: 11 May 2020 06:02 > To: python-ideas@python.org > Subject: [Python-ideas] Re: Improve handling of Unicode quotes and hyphens > > On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 04:28:38AM +0000, Steve Barnes wrote: > > > So we currently have a situation where not only does whether code > > works or not depends on who typed it, in what environment, with what > > settings but also on the same factors for who received it > > You say "currently", but that has always been the case, and the further > back you go, the worse it was. > [Steve Barnes] True - apart from the older email clients being less > "helpful". > > > - so I could > > use Outlook or Word to send a code fragment to 100 people and 5 say > > that is great it works and the other 95 end up thinking that there is > > something wrong with their installation. > > While the actual problem is that you are sending code via a non-WYSIWYG > medium that may modify what you type. > > If you want to send code via email, the most reliable method is to > attach it as a .py file. > > [Steve Barnes] My employer mandates the communication method(s) (as do > many others). They also block unsafe "attachments" such as .py & .bat files > (even when zipped). In any case I am often trying to tell the end user how > to invoke existing code that they already have from the command line, > (especially when they have stored files in folders with spaces, ampersands, > hyphens, etc., in the path). > > > Personally I don't think this > > fits in with the pythonic way of thinking! > > The Zen says differently: > > "Errors should never pass silently." > > It's not Python's responsibility to make up for lossy transmission > methods such as mail servers which strip the high bit off every octet, > or faulty hardware that randomly corrupts one byte in a thousand. > > And nor is it the interpreter's responsibility to guess what the user > intended to type, or *should have* intended to type, in the face of > editors which substitute characters. > > [Steve Barnes] What I would prefer is an error message that actually tells > the end user which specific character(s) they have got wrong rather than > something is wrong after all "Explicit is better than implicit" would > suggest that "illegal character x (Unicode u)" would be more pythonic than > the current error message. > -- > Steven > _______________________________________________ > Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org > To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ > Message archived at > https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/3AO3MPWD7YRCQSHU5UIUSDENCO526PTD/ > Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ > _______________________________________________ > Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org > To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ > Message archived at > https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/UC6YNOSVVIDCQDMB5T73RIJALPUVPDLZ/ > Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ > -- The dead increasingly dominate and strangle both the living and the not-yet born. Vampiric capital and undead corporate persons abuse the lives and control the thoughts of homo faber. Ideas, once born, become abortifacients against new conceptions.
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