Re: [matplotlib-devel] unicodeescape traceback on build of latest master in IPython

[Joel B. M. <jm...@ga...>]

On 12/6/2013 12:45 PM, Thomas Kluyver wrote:
> On 6 December 2013 04:55, Joel B. Mohler <jm...@ga... 
> <mailto:jm...@ga...>> wrote:
>
>     C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\__init__.py in Verbose()
>     --> 252     for arg in map(six.u, sys.argv[1:]):
>     C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\six.pyc in u(s)
>     --> 468         return unicode(s, "unicode_escape")
>     UnicodeDecodeError: 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in
>     position
>     2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape
>
>
> I'll bet that one of the arguments starts with C:\Users. It looks like 
> six.u() can't be applied to arbitrary input (it's intended for literals).

Indeed, I suspect you are exactly right.  After pondering the transcript 
below, I think it is bad idea to apply six.u to any sort of relatively 
unknown input.  In any case, I believe this effectively breaks 
matplotlib in the IPython notebook on windows and other very simple 
things.  Behold:

C:\>python -c "import matplotlib" any_old_thing_with_\u_in_it
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
   File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\__init__.py", line 
240, in <module>
     class Verbose:
   File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\__init__.py", line 
252, in Verbose
     for arg in map(six.u, sys.argv[1:]):
   File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\six.py", line 468, in u
     return unicode(s, "unicode_escape")
UnicodeDecodeError: 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 
19-20: truncated \uXXXX escape

It seems to me that this changeset needs to be rolled back, but I don't 
clearly see the problem that it was intended to fix.

Joel