Re: Change in Decimal repr in Python 2.6

[Terry Reedy]

Karen Tracey wrote:

I noticed when trying out Python's 2.6b2 release that the repr of
Decimal has changed since 2.5. On 2.5:

Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Mar 7 2008, 04:10:12)
[GCC 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

>>import decimal
>>decimal.Decimal(7)

Decimal("7")

>>>

double quotes were used whereas on 2.6b2:

Python 2.6b2 (r26b2:65082, Jul 18 2008, 13:36:54)
[GCC 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

>>import decimal
>>decimal.Decimal(7)

Decimal('7')

>>>

single quotes are used. Searching around I see this was done in r60773
with the log message:

Fix decimal repr which should have used single quotes like other reprs.

but I can't find any discussion other than that.

My problem is this breaks a bunch of doctests that were written assuming
the prior repr. I can't just update the tests to assume the new single
quotes because they are for code that is supposed to run on everything
back to Python 2.3.

So my question:

Is this backwards-incompatible change really necessary and could it be
reconsidered?
If it's here to stay, is there some straightforward why that I am
unaware of to construct tests that use Decimal repr but will work
correctly on Python 2.3-2.6?

Also, if this is not the right list for this question please let me know
where would be more appropriate and I will go there.

If answers here do not satisfy, the pydev list would be the place to
request that this change be put off until 3.0, when changes that break
are more permissible. I do not remember any discussion of this issue.
You can also post there via news.gmane.org/g.c.python.devel (the mail to
news gateway).