Typo: "Writeable" Should be "Writable" in IO Library Documentation

[SeanHappenny]

BPO	38040
Nosy	@terryjreedy

^{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 = None
created_at = <Date 2019-09-05.18:22:56.613>
labels = ['3.7', '3.8', '3.9', 'expert-IO', 'type-feature', 'docs']
title = 'Typo: "Writeable" Should be "Writable" in IO Library Documentation'
updated_at = <Date 2019-09-07.00:29:31.540>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/SeanHappenny'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2019-09-07.00:29:31.540>
actor = 'terry.reedy'
assignee = 'docs@python'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Documentation', 'IO']
creation = <Date 2019-09-05.18:22:56.613>
creator = 'Sean Happenny'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 38040
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['351216', '351217', '351221', '351276']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['terry.reedy', 'SilentGhost', 'docs@python', 'Sean Happenny']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue38040'
versions = ['Python 3.7', 'Python 3.8', 'Python 3.9']

Linked PRs

• gh-82221: Fixed typo writeable to writable #104724

[SeanHappenny]

Problem: There are 4 instances of the typo "writeable" in the documentation for the IO library affecting, at least, versions 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, and the latest master of the documentation (https://docs.python.org/[3.7,3.8,3.9]/library/io.html and https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Doc/library/io.rst). This can cause confusion to the reader. The instances are under the "BufferedWriter" section (https://docs.python.org/3/library/io.html#io.BufferedWriter) and "BufferedRWPair" section (https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/io.html#io.BufferedRWPair).

Fix: Change all instances of "writeable" to "writable" in the IO library documentation.

[SilentGhost]

There are more cases of using this spelling in the code base, but I personally don't see how any confusion can arise and why this "fix" is needed.

[SeanHappenny]

It is a minor issue and I understand that there are many, much more
important fixes and features the whole Python dev team is working on.

But reading the documentation for these classes indicates that these
classes may have a "writeable" member. If, as an example, the user then
needs to examine the implementation of these classes and searches for
"writeable" in the CPython, they'll find instances in comments, but not in
the code. This may cause them to miss the real spelling of the method
"writable()".

Also, another justification is that the documentation should be correct and
currently it is not. This fix should be a very simple find-and-replace, but
does touch multiple files (probably more than those I referenced) and I
understand how that is.

On Thu, Sep 5, 2019, 11:44 SilentGhost <report@bugs.python.org> wrote:

SilentGhost <ghost.adh@runbox.com> added the comment:

There are more cases of using this spelling in the code base, but I
personally don't see how any confusion can arise and why this "fix" is
needed.

----------
nosy: +SilentGhost

---

Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue38040\>

---

[terryjreedy]

Wiktionary and dictionary.com see 'writeable' as an alternate spelling of 'writable', while merriam-webster.com does not. Neither of the former say anything about American versus British usage. I wonder if the first two are rubber-stamping what used to be a misspelling. Or maybe the unabridged merriam-webster behind a paywall has it as a rare variant (but if so, I would expect mention in the 'writable' entry. If it is British, it should be changed. If it is misleading, ditto.

thefreedictionary entry quotes American Heritage and Random House Webster as listing 'writeable' as an alternate.

[hugovk]

The Oxford English Dictionary doesn't draw a regional distinction between the two, although "writable" is the entry heading.

Forms: 1500s wrytable, 1600s– writable, 1700s– writeable.

They have 10 citations using "writable" and four using "writeable".

Google's Books Ngram Viewer shows "writable" is more popular than "writeable" in English as a whole, and also in both American English and British English.

So it looks like "writeable" is a less common alternative to "writable".

[carljm]

The discussion here focused on spelling correctness, but the OP asserted a mismatch between documentation and the actual spelling of a method name in the code, which would be a documentation problem regardless of whether it's technically a correct alternative spelling:

But reading the documentation for these classes indicates that these
classes may have a "writeable" member. If, as an example, the user then
needs to examine the implementation of these classes and searches for
"writeable" in the CPython, they'll find instances in comments, but not in
the code. This may cause them to miss the real spelling of the method
"writable()".

But I can't substantiate the OP's assertion here. None of the four uses of the term writeable in https://docs.python.org/3/library/io.html are referring to any particular method or property name in the code.