Unicode dictionary keys cause TypeError when used as arguments to filter()

[mostrovsky]

I'm using dictionaries to pass arguments to a filter. If the keys of the dictionary are unicode, this causes a TypeError similar to the ones seen in previous tickets (see #10645, which fixed this problem from the admin side of things)

>>> filter_args = {u'date_created':'2009-01-01'}
>>> MyClass.objects.filter(**filter_args)
>>> TypeError: filter() keywords must be strings

Of course, casting the keys by using str() fixes the problem.

This behavior can bee seen on trunk, revision 10630, with python2.5

[Ramiro Morales]

Change Version field value to SVN as per ticket description.

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

This isn't a bug with Django. You can only use the str type for parameter names when calling Python functions. That applies for kwargs as well. It's normal Python behaviour and you should get into the habit of only using str objects as the keys in dictionaries passed as kwargs. So the solution to your problem is "don't do that".

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

By the way, the reason that #10645 is a bug and this isn't is because in #10645 Django itself was creating the dictionary and needed to construct it properly. In this case, the user is constructing the dictionary themselves and can do the right thing in the first place.