`codecs.encode` with `utf-*` encoding and errors returing `str` rejects surrogates blindly

[litlighilit]

Bug report

Bug description:

For codecs.encode,
with utf-* encoding, and a custom errors which returns str,
if you pass some characters that are not invalid UTF characters (e.g. surrogates),
UnicodeEncodeError is just raised and there's not the expected (and documented) case
where the returned str is appended.

import codecs

ERRORS_NAME = "returning non-ascii"

# something being not encod-able via `utf-*`
BAD_UTF = "\uD800"  # the first high surrogate character

def register_repl_error(repl):
    def error_handle(exc: UnicodeEncodeError):
        return (repl, exc.end)

    codecs.register_error(ERRORS_NAME, error_handle)



def encode_surrogate(encoding, repl):
    register_repl_error(repl)
    max_enc_len = 9
    try:
        res = codecs.encode(BAD_UTF, encoding, ERRORS_NAME)
    except UnicodeEncodeError as err:
        reason = err.reason
        print(f"codecs.encode({BAD_UTF!r}, {encoding=:{max_enc_len}}) " +
              f"with custom errors {ERRORS_NAME} raises with {reason=}")

    else:
        print(f"codecs.encode({BAD_UTF!r}, {encoding=:{max_enc_len}}) " +
              f"with custom errors {ERRORS_NAME} returns {res}")


## emoji

NON_ASCII = "\U0001F605" # \N{smiling face with open mouth and cold sweat}: 😅

for i in ('8', '16', '32', '16-le', '16-be'):
    encode_surrogate("utf-" + i, NON_ASCII)


print('-'*3)


## cjk

NON_ASCII = "龍"  # loong in Chinese


### zh
for enc in ("gbk", "big5"):
    encode_surrogate(enc, NON_ASCII)

### jp
for enc in ("Shift_JIS", "EUC-JP"):
    encode_surrogate(enc, NON_ASCII)

Output:

codecs.encode('\ud800', encoding=utf-8    ) with custom errors returning non-ascii raises with reason='surrogates not allowed'
codecs.encode('\ud800', encoding=utf-16   ) with custom errors returning non-ascii raises with reason='surrogates not allowed'
codecs.encode('\ud800', encoding=utf-32   ) with custom errors returning non-ascii raises with reason='surrogates not allowed'
codecs.encode('\ud800', encoding=utf-16-le) with custom errors returning non-ascii raises with reason='surrogates not allowed'
codecs.encode('\ud800', encoding=utf-16-be) with custom errors returning non-ascii raises with reason='surrogates not allowed'
---
codecs.encode('\ud800', encoding=gbk      ) with custom errors returning non-ascii returns b'\xfd\x88'
codecs.encode('\ud800', encoding=big5     ) with custom errors returning non-ascii returns b'\xc0s'
codecs.encode('\ud800', encoding=Shift_JIS) with custom errors returning non-ascii returns b'\x97\xb4'
codecs.encode('\ud800', encoding=EUC-JP   ) with custom errors returning non-ascii returns b'\xce\xb6'

CPython versions tested on:

3.9, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, 3.14

Operating systems tested on:

Linux, Windows

[litlighilit]

I'm going to fix it until I realize something serious to communicate: how errors shall be handled within error_handle?

One is simply re-call encode with 'strict' errors against the returned str, which,

however, may lead to dead loop (recursion), because `encode` will still invoke error_handler against the same data of `str`

is a method also used by _multibytecodec module.

(EDIT:using strict as fallback won's cause deadloop)

[picnixz]

I'll have a look at it in a few days. I think error handler should not have errors but I need to verify. If the error handler errs, then the exception should be propagated.

[litlighilit]

I'll have a look at it in a few days. I think error handler should not have errors but I need to verify. If the error handler errs, then the exception should be propagated.

Right, and it in fact does as expected, as edited above, my previous option was incorrect.

---

Then let's return to the original issue:

I've figured out where the mistaken code lies, and there're at least three places required to be fixed.

Yet these two days I'm too busy to focus on this patch, sorry in advance but I'll make it this weekday.