Inconsistent behavior of email.header.decode_header

[louisabraham]

BPO	37139
Nosy	@warsaw, @bitdancer, @louisabraham
Superseder	bpo-24797: email.header.decode_header return type is not consistent

^{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 = None
closed_at = <Date 2019-06-03.09:30:24.645>
created_at = <Date 2019-06-03.08:52:55.361>
labels = ['type-bug', 'expert-email']
title = 'Inconsistent behavior of email.header.decode_header'
updated_at = <Date 2019-06-03.16:09:16.404>
user = 'https://github.com/louisabraham'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2019-06-03.16:09:16.404>
actor = 'SilentGhost'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2019-06-03.09:30:24.645>
closer = 'SilentGhost'
components = ['email']
creation = <Date 2019-06-03.08:52:55.361>
creator = 'louis.abraham@yahoo.fr'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 37139
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['344392', '344396', '344400', '344439']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['barry', 'r.david.murray', 'SilentGhost', 'louis.abraham@yahoo.fr']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'duplicate'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = '24797'
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue37139'
versions = []

[louisabraham]

Hi,

(this is my first issue btw)

I think <https://docs.python.org/3/library/email.header.html#email.header.decode_header\> has a broken behavior.

It returns a list of (decoded_string, charset) pairs. However, decoded_string can be either a string or bytes.
I have no preference but it should really be of one type.

[SilentGhost]

This seem like a duplicate of bpo-24797. I hope the answer given there applies.

[louisabraham]

Indeed, this is exactly the same (I should have researched more, my bad).

The problem is that I'm using mailbox.Maildir which uses the Compat32 API.

Do you think I should create an issue for Maildir to support the new EmailMessage API?

[SilentGhost]

There seems to be some work started in bpo-32975. Perhaps, you'd like to revive it or contribute otherwise?