Misleading error message of the day

[Roy Smith]

I just spent a while beating my head against this one.

# Python 2.6Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: too many values to unpack

The real problem is that there's too *few* values to unpack! It should
have been

a, b = 'foo', 'bar'

I understand why it's generating the exception it does (the string is an
iterable), but man, did that message throw off my thought processes and
lead me down some totally bogus debugging paths.

It's an unusual case to want to unpack a string. Maybe the message
should changed to "too {many, few} values to unpack (are you sure you
wanted to unpack a string?)" if the RHS is a basestring?

 

[Andrea Crotti]

I just spent a while beating my head against this one.

# Python 2.6
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in<module>
ValueError: too many values to unpack

The real problem is that there's too *few* values to unpack! It should
have been

a, b = 'foo', 'bar'

I understand why it's generating the exception it does (the string is an
iterable), but man, did that message throw off my thought processes and
lead me down some totally bogus debugging paths.

It's an unusual case to want to unpack a string. Maybe the message
should changed to "too {many, few} values to unpack (are you sure you
wanted to unpack a string?)" if the RHS is a basestring?

I had a few errors sometimes because I thought I passed in a list while
I passed only a string, which since it's still iterable would just work
but explode later.

A nicer message wouldn't have really actually helped though, not sure
it's worth to make an exception for such a thing..

 

[Chris Angelico]

I just spent a while beating my head against this one.

# Python 2.6
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: too many values to unpack

Definitely weird! I smell a job for a linter though. If you had just
happened to have a two-character string there, it would have quietly
succeeded, and left you wondering what was going on - imho rather
worse.

This isn't something for the language to solve; the same issue would
come up if you had something like:

a=[1,2,3]
b=[4,5,6]

c,d=a # oops, mucked up the "a,b" side

Or any other iterable. Looks to me like a chance for an informational
note from your lint facility, not a change to the language.

ChrisA

 

[Robert Kern]

I just spent a while beating my head against this one.

# Python 2.6
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in<module>
ValueError: too many values to unpack

The real problem is that there's too *few* values to unpack! It should
have been

a, b = 'foo', 'bar'

I understand why it's generating the exception it does (the string is an
iterable), but man, did that message throw off my thought processes and
lead me down some totally bogus debugging paths.

It's an unusual case to want to unpack a string. Maybe the message
should changed to "too {many, few} values to unpack (are you sure you
wanted to unpack a string?)" if the RHS is a basestring?

Would including the respective numbers help your thought processes?

ValueError: too many values to unpack (expected 2, got 3)

--
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
an underlying truth."
-- Umberto Eco

 

[Jean-Michel Pichavant]

I just spent a while beating my head against this one.

# Python 2.6

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: too many values to unpack

The real problem is that there's too *few* values to unpack! It should
have been

a, b = 'foo', 'bar'

I understand why it's generating the exception it does (the string is an
iterable), but man, did that message throw off my thought processes and
lead me down some totally bogus debugging paths.

It's an unusual case to want to unpack a string. Maybe the message
should changed to "too {many, few} values to unpack (are you sure you
wanted to unpack a string?)" if the RHS is a basestring?

string are iterable, considering this, the error is correct.

Values to unpack in 'foo' are 'f', 'o', 'o'

a,b,c = 'foo'

print a,b,c

f o o


JM

 

[Heiko Wundram]

Am 08.12.2011 15:47, schrieb Robert Kern:

Would including the respective numbers help your thought processes?
ValueError: too many values to unpack (expected 2, got 3)

Not possible in the general case (as the right-hand side might be an
arbitrary iterable/iterator...).

 

[Roy Smith]

Would including the respective numbers help your thought processes?

ValueError: too many values to unpack (expected 2, got 3)

I don't know if that would have done the trick for me on this particular one. On the other hand, adding "expected X, got Y" to the message would generally be a good thing.

 

[Roy Smith]

Would including the respective numbers help your thought processes?

ValueError: too many values to unpack (expected 2, got 3)

I don't know if that would have done the trick for me on this particular one. On the other hand, adding "expected X, got Y" to the message would generally be a good thing.

 

[Roy Smith]

string are iterable, considering this, the error is correct.

Yes, I understand that the exception is correct. I'm not saying the exception should be changed, just that we have the opportunity to produce a more useful error message. The exception would be equally correct if it was:

ValueError: you did something wrong

but most people would probably agree that it's not the most useful message that could have been produced.

 

[Roy Smith]

string are iterable, considering this, the error is correct.

Yes, I understand that the exception is correct. I'm not saying the exception should be changed, just that we have the opportunity to produce a more useful error message. The exception would be equally correct if it was:

ValueError: you did something wrong

but most people would probably agree that it's not the most useful message that could have been produced.

 

[Roy Smith]

Am 08.12.2011 15:47, schrieb Robert Kern:

Not possible in the general case (as the right-hand side might be an
arbitrary iterable/iterator...).

Why not? Take this example:

def i():
i = 0
while True:
print "returning:", i
yield i
i += 1

a, b = i()

../iter.py
returning: 0
returning: 1
returning: 2
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./iter.py", line 10, in <module>
a, b = i()
ValueError: too many values to unpack

The exception was raised when i() returned it's third value, so saying "expected 2, got 3" is exactly correct. Yes, it is true that it might have gotten more if it kept going, but that's immaterial; the fact that it got to 3is what caused the Holy Hand Grenade to be thrown.

 

[Roy Smith]

Am 08.12.2011 15:47, schrieb Robert Kern:

Not possible in the general case (as the right-hand side might be an
arbitrary iterable/iterator...).

Why not? Take this example:

def i():
i = 0
while True:
print "returning:", i
yield i
i += 1

a, b = i()

../iter.py
returning: 0
returning: 1
returning: 2
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./iter.py", line 10, in <module>
a, b = i()
ValueError: too many values to unpack

The exception was raised when i() returned it's third value, so saying "expected 2, got 3" is exactly correct. Yes, it is true that it might have gotten more if it kept going, but that's immaterial; the fact that it got to 3is what caused the Holy Hand Grenade to be thrown.

 

[Heiko Wundram]

Am 08.12.2011 16:42, schrieb Roy Smith:

The exception was raised when i() returned it's third value, so saying "expected 2, got 3" is exactly correct. Yes, it is true that it might have gotten more if it kept going, but that's immaterial; the fact that it got to 3 is what caused the Holy Hand Grenade to be thrown.

Please explain how that error message (in case you're not aiming at the
actual count of elements in the source) differs from the curent wording
"too many values", as you're simply displaying "expected n, got n+1"
where n is visible from the immediate exception output...

 

[Andrea Crotti]

Why not? Take this example:

def i():
i = 0
while True:
print "returning:", i
yield i
i += 1

a, b = i()

./iter.py
returning: 0
returning: 1
returning: 2
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./iter.py", line 10, in<module>
a, b = i()
ValueError: too many values to unpack

The exception was raised when i() returned it's third value, so saying "expected 2, got 3" is exactly correct. Yes, it is true that it might have gotten more if it kept going, but that's immaterial; the fact that it got to 3 is what caused the Holy Hand Grenade to be thrown.

Yes but how do you know how many values you generated when it quits?
I mean I don't know how it work internally, but it should keep a temporary
list of the yielded values to be able to find out how many values are
there..

 

[Chris Angelico]

Yes but how do you know how many values you generated when it quits?
I mean I don't know how it work internally, but it should keep a temporary
list of the yielded values to be able to find out how many values are
there..

Iterator unpacking works roughly thus:

1) Count up how many results you need (call that N)
2) N times, get a value from the iterator. If StopIteration is raised,
swallow it and raise ValueError because there were too few values.
3) Attempt to get one more value from the iterator. If StopIteration
is NOT raised, raise ValueError because there were too many values.

At no point is the "total size" of the iterator counted (it could,
after all, be infinite). When ValueError is raised, all that's known
is that StopIteration wasn't raised at the end of the process.

ChrisA

 

[Tim Chase]

I don't know if that would have done the trick for me on this
particular one. On the other hand, adding "expected X, got Y"
to the message would generally be a good thing.

given the nature of the message, and the interaction with
iterators-of-arbitrary/infinite length, it might have to be
reduced to

"Expected N, got more"

or for the case where you didn't get enough, you know how many
you got: "Expected N, but only got M". But the extra information
would certainly be useful in tracking it down.

-tkc

 

[Grant Edwards]

Yes, I understand that the exception is correct. I'm not saying the exception should be changed, just that we have the opportunity to produce a more useful error message. The exception would be equally correct if it was:

ValueError: you did something wrong

My favorite is still the old classic error from and old Unix printer
port driver:

"lp0 on fire"

 

[Roy Smith]

(some,
very,
long,
list,
of,
variable,
names,
to,
get,
the,
stuff,
unpacked,
into) = function_that_should_return_a_14_tuple()

raises

ValueError: too many values to unpack

Quick, what's the bug? Did I forget a variable on the LHS, or is my function returning more things than it should? I know it's supposed to be 14, but I don't know which side is wrong. Had it said "... expected 13, got 14", I would know immediately.

Error messages should be as explicit as possible. It's just like bug reports. The basic mantra of a bug report is:

1) This is what I did

2) This is what I expected to happen

3) This is what I observed happen

4) This is how what I observed differed from what I expected

Saying, "expected X, got Y" is more explicit than "got too many"

 

[Roy Smith]

(some,
very,
long,
list,
of,
variable,
names,
to,
get,
the,
stuff,
unpacked,
into) = function_that_should_return_a_14_tuple()

raises

ValueError: too many values to unpack

Quick, what's the bug? Did I forget a variable on the LHS, or is my function returning more things than it should? I know it's supposed to be 14, but I don't know which side is wrong. Had it said "... expected 13, got 14", I would know immediately.

Error messages should be as explicit as possible. It's just like bug reports. The basic mantra of a bug report is:

1) This is what I did

2) This is what I expected to happen

3) This is what I observed happen

4) This is how what I observed differed from what I expected

Saying, "expected X, got Y" is more explicit than "got too many"

 

[Benjamin Kaplan]

(some,
 very,
 long,
 list,
 of,
 variable,
 names,
 to,
 get,
 the,
 stuff,
 unpacked,
 into) = function_that_should_return_a_14_tuple()

raises

ValueError: too many values to unpack

Quick, what's the bug?  Did I forget a variable on the LHS, or is my function returning more things than it should?  I know it's supposed to be 14, but I don't know which side is wrong.  Had it said "... expected 13, got 14", I would know immediately.

If the RHS was a tuple or a list, yes you could know immediately. But
unpacking works with any iterable, so it probably doesn't special-case
lists and tuples. Iterables don't have a size- they just keep going
until StopIteration is raised. So in EVERY SINGLE CASE, you would get
"expected n args, got n+1" even if the iterable would return 24 items
instead of 14, or would never stop returning items.