Re: Cube-info dictionary type error on linux cli using Python 3.9.2

[Jim Segrave]

When Pyhon moved from version 2 to version 3,a new feature meant to 
assist with international character sets was added . A python string was 
considered different from an array of bytes. SO now anywhree the python 
scrip expects a variable to bean array of bytes and it currenty has a 
string, it needs the string to be explicity converted to an array of 
bytes by sepecifying a character encoding. Generally (and I think this 
will apply with gnubg), For your exmple, I'm assuming gnubg.cubeinfo()i 
returnng a string, so myCubeInfo will have a Python type of 'str'. If 
instead you cast the result of gnubg.cubeinfo() to a type of bytes, 
things would work:

myCubeInfo = bytes(gnubg.cubeinf(), 'utf8')

The change fro Python2 to PYthon3 has been a nightmare for many users 
and this is one of themost common breakages


On 19/02/2022 11:53, Rose Menninger wrote:
> Hi. First of all, thanks for your efforts in creating such a good software / 
> package. I have been using gnubg cli in the last few years and really enjoyed 
> it. But recently I have encountered a weird error.
>
> Using Gnubg 1.06.002 on Debian 11 (wirh Python 3.9.2) and also on ubuntu 20.4 
> lts (with Python 3.8.10), every Python script that uses “cube-info” dictionary 
> as argument, gives this type error:
> TypeError: expected bytes, str found
>
> Steps to reproduce this error:
> Using gnubg 1.06.002 and Python 3.9.2 on linux
> 1- start cli using “gnubg -t”
> 2- start a new game using “new game”
> 3- set turn using “set turn 1”
> 4- set dice using “set dice 6 2”
> 5- enter Python command line using “>”
> 6- passing cube-info dictionary to any of gnubg methods that accept it as 
> argument. For example:
>       myCubeInfo = gnubg.cubeinfo()
>       gnubg.calcgammonprice(myCubeInfo)
>
> Expected result: cube-info with updated gammon prices
>
> Result:
> TypeError: expected bytes, str found
>
> Note that the same code was working on older versions on gnubg. This same exact 
> code also works correctly on gnubg 1.06.002 on Mac OS using Python 2.7.18. So, 
> this error seems to be related to Python > 3.8.10. I have also built latest cvs 
> version from savannah on a fresh and updated debian 11, but still got this same 
> exact error.
>
> Also, every other gnubg method that accepts “cube-info” dictionary results in 
> the same exact error (calcgammonprice, cfevaluate, eq2mwc…). Everything else 
> works as expected as far as I can see.
>
> I have been struggling with this error for 3 weeks, searching about it on 
> different forums and reproducing it on different machines. Am I missing 
> something?
>
> Any help is greatly appreciated.
> Thanks