Josh Rosenberg added the comment:
basestring in Python 2 means "thing that is logically text", because in Python
2, str can mean *either* logical text *or* binary data, and unicode is always
logical text. str and unicode can kinda sorta interoperate on Python 2, so it
can make sense to test
Bob Kline added the comment:
> Unless you have a specific proposal, ...
I _do_ have a specific proposal: replace `basestring` with `(str, bytes)`,
which preserves the behavior of the original code. So,
if isinstance(value, basestring)
becomes
if isinstance(value, (str, bytes))
Terry J. Reedy added the comment:
Bob, this issue tracker is for managing patches to the cpython repository. not
for 'help me understand' requests, The latter belong on, for instance,
python-list. Unless you have a specific proposal, other than leaving
'basestring' alone(1), that we
Bob Kline added the comment:
> Use str instead.
Sure. I understand the advantages of the new approach to strings. Which, by the
way, weren't available when this project began. I don't disagree with anything
you say in the context of writing new code. I was, however, surprised and
dismayed
Karthikeyan Singaravelan added the comment:
https://docs.python.org/3.0/whatsnew/3.0.html
> The builtin basestring abstract type was removed. Use str instead. The str
> and bytes types don’t have functionality enough in common to warrant a shared
> base class. The 2to3 tool (see below)
New submission from Bob Kline :
We are attempting to convert a large Python 2 code base. Following the guidance
of the official documentation
(https://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html#basestring) we created tests
in many, many places that look like this:
if isinstance(value,
