Python 3 issue that isn't handled by 2to3: type of stderr

[jean]

I got this:

$ ./generate-bash-completion
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "git-hub", line 2156, in <module>
    main()
  File "git-hub", line 2121, in main
    config = Config()
  File "git-hub", line 316, in __init__
    self.username = git_config('username', getpass.getuser())
  File "git-hub", line 272, in git_config
    return git(*cmd)
  File "git-hub", line 218, in git
    raise GitError(proc.returncode, args, stderr.rstrip('\n'))
TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'

At that point, stderr is b''.

To fix it, I could do this:

@@ -215,7 +215,7 @@ def git(*args, **kwargs):
     proc = subprocess.Popen(args, **kwargs)
     (stdout, stderr) = proc.communicate()
     if proc.returncode != 0:
-        raise GitError(proc.returncode, args, stderr.rstrip('\n'))
+        raise GitError(proc.returncode, args, str(stderr).rstrip('\n'))
     return stdout.rstrip('\n')

If my fix is correct, maybe worth adding to the README?

[leandro-lucarella-sociomantic]

String handling is a mess unfortunately. This really needs to use a lot of from __future__ import ... to be more python3 compatible. At this point I'm not sure if it's worth adding little hacks, but OTOH if this small fix makes it work for you with 2to3, it can be applied, str(stderr) shouldn't change anything in py2.

[jean]

This one I "fixed" (avoided) by simply %s/$PYTHON/python2 in the Makefile 😬
I agree that this is better addressed in a proper port.