Re: [xml2rfc] Unable to run xml2rfc --help

[Roger Price <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, 28 Dec 2020, Carsten Bormann wrote:

> On 2020-12-25, at 15:24, Roger Price <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> python3.5
> but this got my attention: Python 3.5 is end-of-life; did you try a newer 
> Python?

I changed the xml2rfc shebang to #!/usr/bin/python3.8 and ran Python 3.8.1 but 
it made no difference.

> I’m out of educated guesses (at least until you are showing more of the traceback),

The full Python error message is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "/usr/bin/xml2rfc", line 7, in <module>
     from xml2rfc.run import main
   File "/mnt/home/rprice/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/xml2rfc/__init__.py", line
     14, in <module>
     from xml2rfc.parser import  XmlRfcError, CachingResolver, XmlRfcParser, XmlRfc
   File "/mnt/home/rprice/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/xml2rfc/parser.py",
     line 20, in <module> from xml2rfc.writers import base
   File "/mnt/home/rprice/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/xml2rfc/writers/__init__.py",
     line 2, in <module> from xml2rfc.writers.base import RfcWriterError
   File "/mnt/home/rprice/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/xml2rfc/writers/base.py",
     line 30, in <module>
     from xml2rfc.util.unicode import ( punctuation, unicode_replacements,
     unicode_content_tags, bare_unicode_tags,
   File "/mnt/home/rprice/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/xml2rfc/util/unicode.py",
     line 260, in <module>
     punctuation_re = re.compile(r'[%s]'%''.join(list(punctuation.keys())))
   File "/usr/lib/python3.5/re.py", line 224, in compile
     return _compile(pattern, flags)
   File "/usr/lib/python3.5/re.py", line 293, in _compile
     p = sre_compile.compile(pattern, flags)
   File "/usr/lib/python3.5/sre_compile.py", line 536, in compile
     p = sre_parse.parse(p, flags)
   File "/usr/lib/python3.5/sre_parse.py", line 829, in parse
     p = _parse_sub(source, pattern, 0)
   File "/usr/lib/python3.5/sre_parse.py", line 437, in _parse_sub
     itemsappend(_parse(source, state))
   File "/usr/lib/python3.5/sre_parse.py", line 575, in _parse
     raise source.error(msg, len(this) + 1 + len(that))
sre_constants.error: bad character range …-‚ at position 3

In file unicode.py at line 260

  punctuation_re = re.compile(r'[%s]'%''.join(list(punctuation.keys())))

I added the two lines

  import sys
  print("unicode.py: list(punctuation.keys())) = {}".format(list(punctuation.keys())))

On runs when Python crashes I see outputs:

unicode.py: list(punctuation.keys()) = ['−', '‐', '′', '\u2002', '’', '´',
                  '\u2003', '‚', '–', '\u2009', '”', '-', '“', '‘', '…', '„', '—']
unicode.py: list(punctuation.keys()) = ['„', '”', '—', '–', '…', '-', '\u2009',
                  '‘', '’', '\u2003', '−', '´', '\u2002', '‚', '′', '‐', '“']

When the runs succeed I see outputs:

unicode.py: list(punctuation.keys()) = ['−', '\u2003', '\u2009', '‘', '“', '‚',
                  '-', '”', '—', '’', '′', '\u2002', '‐', '–', '…', '´', '„']
unicode.py: list(punctuation.keys()) = ['\u2002', '‐', '′', '\u2003', '−', '´',
                  '“', '”', '„', '–', '-', '‘', '’', '…', '‚', '\u2009', '—']

I do not understand why such a list of constants has to be so random. I'm not 
sure where to look next, but if you would like to see further traces of other 
functions, just ask. Roger