Pythontex does not work with German language (yes really)

[Kamik423]

Minimal working example

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage[german, ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{ngerman} % I am the bad line

\usepackage{pythontex}

\begin{document}

\begin{pycode}
    print("y")
\end{pycode}

\end{document}

Running

xelatex mwe.tex

yields

! Argument of " has an extra }.
<inserted text> 
                \par 
l.284 \StrSubstitute{\pytx@jobname}{"}{}
                                        [\pytx@jobname]

removing the ngerman line makes it run again.

[gpoore]

I'd suggest trying to load pythontex before babel. I expect that ngerman is globally redefining " immediately (making it active, perhaps for umlaut), and this is interfering with pythontex using the " character in the preamble.

[Kamik423]

Should this not at least be mentioned in the documentation at some point where users can see it? Or maybe when loading pythontex the package could check for " being redefined and display a more helpful error message?

[gpoore]

I can look into adding a note to the documentation, and at some point, I may be able to add a check for redefinitions of ASCII punctuation characters. The order of loading packages should really be discussed in language packages like ngerman, though, because any time a package globally redefines character or common macro meanings within the preamble, there is significant potential for issues, and such packages should always be loaded as late as possible.