👥 feat[idempotent-quoting]: Add idempotent quoting

[DJ73]

Currently, the Python 3.7 quoting implementation encodes the % character as %25, which causes repeated quoting on already-quoted strings to produce different outputs on each pass. This leads to inconsistent and non-idempotent behavior when the quoting function is applied multiple times to strings with unknown quoting levels.

This change introduces an option to use an idempotent quoting mode that preserves existing percent-encodings and ensures that multiple iterations of quoting produce the same output. This guarantees stability and predictability for quoting operations, preventing double-encoding issues in downstream processing.

[DJ73]

@pacman82 @xhochy @matthias-bach-by
Could anyone please review this request?

[pacman82]

Could anyone please review this request?

Sure.

Technically it is sound. The benchmarks would not even have been necessary. The specification you are going against I have some questions though.

What exactly is the problem you are solving? Why can you not be idempotent by remembering the original input? There are other encodings already which also do not use %, why do they not work?

The PYTHON_3_7 prefix was very much intended to communicating to the user that the behavior of PYTHON_3_7 is imitated. The other encodings describe the situation and the use-case they are for. Since imitation is not what you are looking for I would ask you for a descriptive name, which describes it independent from the language and version you are using. Maybe you even discover that one of the existing encodings already covers your use-case?

Best, Markus

[DJ73]

Hi @pacman82,
The primary goal here is to compare partially quoted strings for validation—especially when storing user input. I agree that the PYTHON_3_7 name could be misleading; I’ve removed it from the new quoting implementation.

Existing quoting methods are too restrictive for this use case—they’re designed for specific input forms, whereas this approach needs to handle arbitrary quote-checking.

Let me know if anything’s still unclear.

Regards,
DJ

[pacman82]

Okay, I'll approve. Yet please take out the benchmarks. We can vet them in a separate PR.

Best, Markus

[DJ73]

Hey @pacman82, thanks. Removed the benchmarks for now.

Regards,
DJ

[pacman82]

@DJ73 , Thanks for the contribution.

[DJ73]

@pacman82, just one more point, could you create a release for it as well please? The build has not been published

[pacman82]

@DJ73 Yeah, I realize that. Sadly, I need help publishing it. See: #14

While I am the original author of the package, I no longer work at BY, so I am not sure I can resolve this without help.