Improve "unable to convert string" error message

[jdemeyer]

Component: user interface

Keywords: sd66

Author: Jeroen Demeyer

Branch/Commit: 1a1976c

Reviewer: Karl-Dieter Crisman

Issue created by migration from https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/18110

[jdemeyer]

Branch: u/jdemeyer/improve__unable_to_convert_string__error_message

[jdemeyer]

Commit: abc5a70

[jdemeyer]

New commits:

abc5a70

Improve "unable to convert string" error message

[jdemeyer]

Changed keywords from none to sd66

[kcrisman]

comment:3

Only one question:

+        if isinstance(x, basestring):
+            from sage.misc.sage_eval import sage_eval

but there is no corresponding import for y, so in theory there could be some situation where x wasn't a basestring (whatever that is) but y was. ? Otherwise looks good.

[kcrisman]

comment:4

Otherwise all looks good and passes all tests in sage/rings.

[jdemeyer]

Reviewer: Karl-Dieter Crisman

[jdemeyer]

comment:5

Replying to @kcrisman:

Only one question:

+        if isinstance(x, basestring):
+            from sage.misc.sage_eval import sage_eval

but there is no corresponding import for y, so in theory there could be some situation where x wasn't a basestring (whatever that is) but y was. ?

Good catch. Interestingly, that error was caught by the except NameError:...