pybind / pybind/pybind11

[BUG] Unbound methods should just be functions instead of instancemethod

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bug help wanted
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Description

Issue description

Objects of classes created with pybind11 can't be pretty printed with the pprint module if the result is larger than the given width.
This only happens with python3.

It used to happen with cython too, but cython stopped using 'instancemethod', which solved the issue. The pprint bug was discarded because "Functions/methods should be immutable, so yes, I think it is a safe assumption that they should be hashable":

https://bugs.python.org/issue33395

Reproducible example code

example.cpp:

#include <pybind11/pybind11.h>
#include <string>

namespace py = pybind11;

struct Dummy
{
  std::string text;
};

PYBIND11_MODULE(example, m) {
  using namespace pybind11::literals;

  py::class_<Dummy>(m, "Dummy")
      .def(py::init<std::string>(), "text"_a)
      .def_readonly("text", &Dummy::text)
      .def("__str__", [](const Dummy& w) { return w.text; })
      .def("__repr__", [](const Dummy& w) { return w.text; });
}

bug.py:

import example
import pprint

pprint.pprint(example.Dummy('abc'), width=3)

Result:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bug.py", line 4, in <module>
    pprint.pprint(example.Dummy('abc'), width=2)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/pprint.py", line 53, in pprint
    printer.pprint(object)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/pprint.py", line 148, in pprint
    self._format(object, self._stream, 0, 0, {}, 0)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/pprint.py", line 173, in _format
    p = self._dispatch.get(type(object).__repr__, None)
TypeError: unhashable type: 'instancemethod'

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by building the binding shown in example.cpp and running bug.py with Python 3 to reproduce the pprint TypeError. Read the pybind11 class and method-binding entry points related to unbound methods, then verify that pprint.pprint handles the resulting object at a narrow width without raising the unhashable instancemethod error.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp, python
Domain
devtools
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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