Possible bug in 1.0.4b3 tag of turbogears

The /visit/api.py file in the 1.0.4b3 tag of turbogears has this function, starting on line 177:

        def encode_utf8(params):
            '''
            will recursively encode to utf-8 all values in a dictionnary
            '''
            res = dict()
            for k, v in params.items():
                if type(v) is dict:
                    res[k] = encode_utf8(v)

                else:
                    res[k] = v.encode('utf-8')

            return res

If you have a query string like ?a=1&a=2, then params has a key u’a’ that points to a list that contains u’1′ and u’2′. And encode isn’t defined for lists, so . . .

Fortunately, the /visit/api.py file in the branches/1.0 branch already has a fix for this problem, so I ran setup.py develop in my checkout directory and was back in business.

I lost so much time today figuring this out because I kept looking for the bug in my code, rather than in the framework itself. Also, the code works fine as long as the query string doesn’t have more than one value for the same key.

While I’m on the soapbox, I really wish that testutil.py would change this function:

    def tearDown(self):
        database.rollback_all()
        for item in self._get_soClasses():
            if isinstance(item, types.TypeType) and issubclass(item,
                sqlobject.SQLObject) and item != sqlobject.SQLObject 
                and item != InheritableSQLObject:
                item.dropTable(ifExists=True)

    def tearDown(self):
        database.rollback_all()
        import copy # Probably don't actually import here, but this is just for illustration.
        x = copy.copy(self.__get_soClasses())  # store a copy of the list.
        x.reverse() # Now reverse it.
        for item in x: # Iterate the reversed copy.
            if isinstance(item, types.TypeType) and issubclass(item,
                sqlobject.SQLObject) and item != sqlobject.SQLObject 
                and item != InheritableSQLObject:
                item.dropTable(ifExists=True)

The whole point of using self.__get_soClasses is that it looks for a list that defines the order to follow when creating tables. You can define soClasses in your model to make sure that your independent tables are created before your dependent tables.

Well, when it comes time to destroy all your tables, you should destroy the dependent tables first.

I posted this about a month ago to the turbogears trunk mailing list already.

Sidenote — if you’re one of the people that are selflessly donating your time to working on turbogears, please don’t take my rants here personally. I’m really grateful that other people are building tools and giving them away, so that I can make a living.