The output below is NOT typed at the Python interactive interpeter.  The ">>> " shows what is being evaluated and the line below it shows what the result it.

The output gets generated here:  (lines 418-449 of the attached file)

    def name_globalize_class(name, second=None):
        def decorator(cls):
            
            def printval(source, value=None):
                print(">>> " + source)
                if value is not None:
                    print(repr(value))
            print("in decorator: new name is:", repr(name))
            print()
            printval("cls", cls)
            printval("cls.__name__", cls.__name__)
            printval("cls.__qualname__", cls.__qualname__)
            printval('type.__dict__["__qualname__"].__get__(cls)',
                     type.__dict__["__qualname__"].__get__(cls))
            print()
            
            cls.__name__ = name
            cls.__qualname__ = name
            
            stuff = ">>> cls.__name__ = {0}\n>>> cls.__qualname__ = {0}\n"
            print(stuff.format(repr(name)))
            
            printval("cls.__name__", cls.__name__)
            printval("cls.__qualname__", cls.__qualname__)
            printval('type.__dict__["__qualname__"].__get__(cls)',
                     type.__dict__["__qualname__"].__get__(cls))
            printval("cls", cls)
            print()
            globals()[name] = cls
            pdb.set_trace()
            return cls
        return decorator
    
HERE IS THE OUTPUT:

>>> cls
<class '__main__._maketokensnodes.<locals>._TokenClass'>
>>> cls.__name__
'_TokenClass'
>>> cls.__qualname__
'_maketokensnodes.<locals>._TokenClass'
>>> type.__dict__["__qualname__"].__get__(cls)
'_maketokensnodes.<locals>._TokenClass'

>>> cls.__name__ = 'KEYWORD'
>>> cls.__qualname__ = 'KEYWORD'

>>> cls.__name__
'KEYWORD'
>>> cls.__qualname__
'KEYWORD'
>>> type.__dict__["__qualname__"].__get__(cls)
'_maketokensnodes.<locals>._TokenClass'
>>> cls
<class '__main__._maketokensnodes.<locals>._TokenClass'>

END OF OUTPUT

Note how after assigning to cls.__qualname__ it looks like the class's dictionary object has been assigned into, masking the class's C-level type attribute-level ht_qualname!

My gut feeling is that this has to be some kind of a bug.  Let me know if it is.

Here's a patch for 3.4. __qualname__ ought to have been implemented this way in the first place. I'll have to think about what can be done about 3.3. Maybe just the same fix without the removal of PyHeapType.ht_qualname. We can hope no one has written extensions relying on its value actually being correct.

I'm not sure why this would be the correct way to do it. First you are removing the unicode check, which looks wrong to me. Second, if ht_name works, perhaps ht_qualname can be made to work as well?

Was does qualname need to be on the struct?

s/Was/Why/

Here's the other option.

New changeset 1d700e1aff33 by Benjamin Peterson in branch '3.3':
don't shadow the __qualname__ descriptor with __qualname__ in the class's __dict__ (closes #16271)
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/1d700e1aff33