[PyQt] Strange behaviour with string conversions when emitting signals with dicts

[Stefan Scherfke]

Hello,

yesterday I noticed a strange behavior with PyQt4 when I emit a signal, that has a dict with string-keys as argument.

Take the following example:

    from PyQt4 import QtCore


    class A(QtCore.QObject):

        sig = QtCore.pyqtSignal(dict)

        def run(self):
            self.sig.emit({'a': [1, 'b']})


    class Main(object):
        def __init__(self):
            self.obj = A()
            self.obj.sig.connect(self.echo)
            self.obj.run()

        def echo(self, obj):
            print obj


    if __name__ == '__main__':
        Main()


Until PyQt 4.7 (on my Mac and until last week on my other machine), the (expected) output was:

    {'a', [1, 'b']}

But since I got an update to PyQt 4.7.2 on my Kubuntu machine, the (unexpected) output is:

    {PyQt4.QtCore.QString(u'a'): [1, PyQt4.QtCore.QString(u'b')]}

If I change the signal definition in class B to

    sig = QtCore.pyqtSignal('PyQt_PyObject')

the output is again:

    {'a', [1, 'b']}

But "pyqtSignal(dict)" was a much more intuitive/pythonic way to define the signal.

Was this intuitive behavior of PyQt <= 4.7 a bug that was fixed in 4.7.2 or is this a new bug introduced with PyQt 4.7.2?

I can’t imagine that this change is a new “feature”, because it broke my whole application which should not happen with a bugfix release like 4.7.2.

Best regards,
Stefan