Mariatta, would you please add your review comments to the proposed patches.  For the most part, we want the patches to make the minimal changes necessary to pass the doctests.  Also, clarity of the examples is more important than making the examples doctestable (i.e. perhaps added sorted() to the output makes it more predictable but it might also obfuscate the point being made).

In general, we would like to have the convenience of doc testing but should be unwilling to commit any atrocities along the way.  Ideally, the examples should be written in a way that doesn't garbage them up with <blankline> and whatnot (that is generally distracting to the reader and only serves doctest).  Similarly, make sure that clarity and cut-and-pastability don't get lost by adding ... PS2 prompts that uglify the examples.  In all cases, the intent of the example writer and the clarity of the example takes precedence over the doctests.

You should try out the patches and make sure the tests run, build the docs and make sure the examples are clean looking from a user point of view. If you find any issues or have questions, use rietveld for discussion (that is the "review" link to the right of the patch).