function generate_tokes at tokenize.py yields token OP (51) for colon,
while it should be token COLON (11). It probably affects other python
versions as well.

I'm attaching a minor sample that demonstrates this, running it returns
the following output:

1 'if' (1, 0) (1, 2) if a == 2:
1 'a' (1, 3) (1, 4) if a == 2:
51 '==' (1, 5) (1, 7) if a == 2:
2 '2' (1, 8) (1, 9) if a == 2:
51 ':' (1, 9) (1, 10) if a == 2:
1 'print' (2, 0) (2, 5) print 'hey'
3 "'hey'" (2, 6) (2, 11) print 'hey'
0 '' (3, 0) (3, 0)

I didn't check if there are problems with other tokens, I noticed this
with colon because I was trying to make some improvements on tabnanny.

I'm attaching a patch that solves this and updates tests.

Unfortunately I think this will break many users of tokenize.py.

e.g. http://browsershots.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/devtools/pep8/pep8.py
has code like:
if (token_type == tokenize.OP and text in '([' and ...):

If tokenize now returns LPAR, this code will no longer work correctly.
Tools/i18n/pygettext.py, pylint, WebWare, pyfuscate, all have similar code. So I think we can't change the API this radically. Adding a parameter to enable more precise handling of tokens, and defaulting it to off, is probably the only way to change this.

I have not looked at this, but a new parameter would be a new feature. Its a moot point until there is an agreed on patch for a current version.

There are a *lot* of characters with semantic significance that are reported by the tokenize module as generic "OP" tokens:

token.LPAR
token.RPAR
token.LSQB
token.RSQB
token.COLON
token.COMMA
token.SEMI
token.PLUS
token.MINUS
token.STAR
token.SLASH
token.VBAR
token.AMPER
token.LESS
token.GREATER
token.EQUAL
token.DOT
token.PERCENT
token.BACKQUOTE
token.LBRACE
token.RBRACE
token.EQEQUAL
token.NOTEQUAL
token.LESSEQUAL
token.GREATEREQUAL
token.TILDE
token.CIRCUMFLEX
token.LEFTSHIFT
token.RIGHTSHIFT
token.DOUBLESTAR
token.PLUSEQUAL
token.MINEQUAL
token.STAREQUAL
token.SLASHEQUAL
token.PERCENTEQUAL
token.AMPEREQUAL
token.VBAREQUAL
token.CIRCUMFLEXEQUAL
token.LEFTSHIFTEQUAL
token.RIGHTSHIFTEQUAL
token.DOUBLESTAREQUAL¶
token.DOUBLESLASH
token.DOUBLESLASHEQUAL
token.AT

However, I can't fault tokenize for deciding to treat all of those tokens the same way - for many source code manipulation purposes, these just need to be transcribed literally, and the "OP" token serves that purpose just fine.

As the extensive test updates in the current patch suggest, AMK is also correct that changing this away from always returning "OP" tokens (even for characters with more specialised tokens available) would be a backwards incompatible change.

I think there are two parts to this problem, one documentation related (affecting 2.7, 3.2, 3.3) and another that would be an actual change in 3.3:

1. First, I think 3.3 should add an "exact_type" attribute to TokenInfo instances (without making it part of the tuple-based API). For most tokens, this would be the same as "type", but for OP tokens, it would provide the appropriate more specific token ID.

2. Second, the tokenize module documentation should state *explicitly* which tokens it collapses down into the generic "OP" token, and explain how to use the "string" attribute to recover the more detailed information.

I believe that that list includes all symbols and symbol combinations that are syntactically significant in expressions. This is the generalized meaning of 'operator' that is being used. What do not appear are '#' which marks comments, '_' which is a name char, and '\' which escapes chars within strings. Other symbols within strings will also not be marked as OP tokens. The non-syntactic symbols '$' and '?' are also omitted.

Sure, but what does that have to do with anything? tokenize isn't a general purpose tokenizer, it's specifically for tokenizing Python source code.

The *problem* is that it doesn't currently fully tokenize everything, but doesn't explicitly say that in the module documentation.

Hence my proposed two-fold fix: document the current behaviour explicitly and also add a separate "exact_type" attribute for easy access to the detailed tokenization without doing your own string comparisons.

If you are responding to me, I am baffled. I gave a concise way to document the current behavior with respect to .OP, which you said you wanted.

Ah, I didn't read it as suggested documentation at all - you moved seamlessly from personal commentary to a docs suggestion without separating the two, so it appeared to be a complete non sequitur to me.

As for the docs suggestion, I think it works as the explanation of which tokens are affected once the concept of the token stream simplification is introduced:
=====
To simplify token stream handling, all literal tokens (':', '{', etc) are returned using the generic 'OP' token type. This allows them to be simply handled using common code paths (e.g. for literal transcription directly from input to output). Specific tokens can be distinguished by checking the "string" attribute of OP tokens for a match with the expected character sequence.

The affected tokens are all symbols and symbol combinations that are syntactically significant in expressions (as listed in the token module). Anything which is not an independent token (i.e. '#' which marks comments, '_' which is just part of a name, '\' which is used for line continuations, the contents of string literals and any symbols which are not a defined part of Python's syntax) is completely unaffected by this difference in behaviour.
===========

If "exact_type" is introduced in 3.3, then the first paragraph can be adjusted accordingly.

Both the proposed text and 3.3 addition look good to me.

The proposed documentation text seems too complicated and language expert speaky to me. We should try to link to standard definitions when possible to reduce the text here. For example, I believe the "Operators" and "Delimiters" tokens in the "Lexical Analysis" section of the docs (http://docs.python.org/dev/reference/lexical_analysis.html#operators) are exactly what we are trying to describe when referencing "literal tokens" and "affected tokens".

I like Nick's idea to introduce a new attribute for the exact type, while keeping the tuple structure itself backwards compatible. Attached is a patch for 3.3 that updates the docs, adds exact_type, adds new unit tests, and adds a new CLI option for displaying token names using the exact type.

An example of the new CLI option is:

$ echo '1+2**4' | ./python -m tokenize
1,0-1,1:            NUMBER         '1'            
1,1-1,2:            OP             '+'            
1,2-1,3:            NUMBER         '2'            
1,3-1,5:            OP             '**'           
1,5-1,6:            NUMBER         '4'            
1,6-1,7:            NEWLINE        '\n'           
2,0-2,0:            ENDMARKER      ''             
$ echo '1+2**4' | ./python -m tokenize -e
1,0-1,1:            NUMBER         '1'            
1,1-1,2:            PLUS           '+'            
1,2-1,3:            NUMBER         '2'            
1,3-1,5:            DOUBLESTAR     '**'           
1,5-1,6:            NUMBER         '4'            
1,6-1,7:            NEWLINE        '\n'           
2,0-2,0:            ENDMARKER      ''

Meador's patch looks good to me. The docs change for 2.7 and 3.2 would be similar, just with text like "Specific tokens can be distinguished by checking the string attribute of OP tokens for a match with the expected character sequence." replacing the reference to the new "exact_type" attribute.

The cmdoption directive should be used with a program directive. See library/trace for an example of how to use it and to see the anchors and index entries it generates.

The cmdoption directive should be used with a program directive.

Ah, nice. Thanks for the tip Éric.

Updated patch attached along with a patch for the 2.7/3.2 doc update attached.

New changeset 75baef657770 by Meador Inge in branch '2.7':
Issue bpo-2134: Clarify token.OP handling rationale in tokenize documentation.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/75baef657770

New changeset dfd74d752b0e by Meador Inge in branch '3.2':
Issue bpo-2134: Clarify token.OP handling rationale in tokenize documentation.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/dfd74d752b0e

New changeset f4976fa6e830 by Meador Inge in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-2134: Add support for tokenize.TokenInfo.exact_type.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/f4976fa6e830

Fixed. Thanks for the reviews everyone.