string module requires bytes type for maketrans, but calling method on regular string does not

[MechPaul]

BPO	5675
Nosy	@birkenfeld, @rhettinger, @benjaminp, @ezio-melotti

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/birkenfeld'
closed_at = <Date 2009-05-31.21:39:03.758>
created_at = <Date 2009-04-02.23:54:34.597>
labels = ['docs']
title = 'string module requires bytes type for maketrans, but calling method on regular string does not'
updated_at = <Date 2009-05-31.21:39:03.757>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/MechPaul'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2009-05-31.21:39:03.757>
actor = 'georg.brandl'
assignee = 'georg.brandl'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2009-05-31.21:39:03.758>
closer = 'georg.brandl'
components = ['Documentation']
creation = <Date 2009-04-02.23:54:34.597>
creator = 'MechPaul'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 5675
keywords = []
message_count = 5.0
messages = ['85280', '85290', '85904', '88610', '88612']
nosy_count = 5.0
nosy_names = ['georg.brandl', 'rhettinger', 'benjamin.peterson', 'ezio.melotti', 'MechPaul']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'works for me'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue5675'
versions = ['Python 3.1']

[MechPaul]

I was making a simple Caesarian cipher when this issue came up.

#Following code here

>>> import string
>>> CAESER_SHIFT = 13
>>> TranslationTableUpper = [string.ascii_uppercase[(index +
CAESER_SHIFT) % 26] for index in range(26)]
>>> TranslationTableLower = [string.ascii_lowercase[(index +
CAESER_SHIFT) % 26] for index in range(26)]
>>> TranslationTableCipher = ''.join(TranslationTableUpper +
TranslationTableLower)
>>> TranslationTableRegular = string.ascii_uppercase[0:27] +
string.ascii_lowercase[0:27]
>>> Trans = ''.maketrans(TranslationTableCipher, TranslationTableRegular)
>>> print(Trans)
{65: 78, 66: 79, 67: 80, 68: 81, 69: 82, 70: 83, 71: 84, 72: 85, 73: 86,
74: 87, 75: 88, 76: 89, 77: 90, 78: 65, 79: 66, 80: 67, 81: 68, 82: 69,
83: 70, 84: 71, 85: 72, 86: 73, 87: 74, 88: 75, 89: 76, 90: 77, 97: 110,
98: 111, 99: 112, 100: 113, 101: 114, 102: 115, 103: 116, 104: 117, 105:
118, 106: 119, 107: 120, 108: 121, 109: 122, 110: 97, 111: 98, 112: 99,
113: 100, 114: 101, 115: 102, 116: 103, 117: 104, 118: 105, 119: 106,
120: 107, 121: 108, 122: 109}
>>> #Okay... so maketrans() is working okay when calling it on an empty
string, buuuut if called from the string module...
>>> Trans = string.maketrans(TranslationTableCipher,
TranslationTableRegular)
    Trans = string.maketrans(TranslationTableCipher,
TranslationTableRegular)
  File "D:\Python31\lib\string.py", line 55, in maketrans
    raise TypeError("maketrans arguments must be bytes objects")
TypeError: maketrans arguments must be bytes objects

[benjaminp]

This seems to have been intentional. I'm assigning it to Georg since he
made the commit.

[birkenfeld]

This is (kind of) intentional. string.maketrans operates on bytes, not
string objects. However, this is quite confusing, so I added
bytes.maketrans() now in py3k, and deprecated string.maketrans(). (r71521)

[rhettinger]

The bytearray.maketrans() method isn't documented yet.

[birkenfeld]

Should be fixed in r73086.