Clarify "What exactly are you trying to pull?"

[habnabit]

toml/toml.py

Lines 61 to 62 in df2b2df

	if not isinstance(s, basestring):
	raise TypeError("What exactly are you trying to pull?")

    if not isinstance(s, basestring):
        raise TypeError("What exactly are you trying to pull?")

It's not a very useful error message if you have to dig into the source to figure out what it means. In this case, a bytes was being passed in, which is not permissible in python 3. Better would be to avoid basestring at all, as it is basically nonsense. Check for bytes or unicode and encode or decode appropriately.

[uiri]

Any suggestions on what a better error message would be?

    if not isinstance(s, basestring):
        raise TypeError("Expecting something like a string")

Would this be better?

[habnabit]

I'd recommend isinstance(s, unicode) and deleting the utf-8 decode attempt, but sure, that message at least conveys some meaning. With the fixes suggested, perhaps:

    if not isinstance(s, unicode):
        raise TypeError('expected {!r} to be unicode; got {!r}'.format(s, type(s)))

[uiri]

I'd recommend isinstance(s, unicode) and deleting the utf-8 decode attempt, but sure, that message at least conveys some meaning.

The code is meant to run on both python2 and python3. For that reason, I need to keep the utf-8 decode attempt. In python3, it will only accept normal (unicode) strings. In python2, it will accept both normal strings and unicode strings. When running on python3, basestring is equal to str.

With that in mind, the error message should make sense on both python 2 and 3.