`bytearray()` shouldn't convert `'` to `\'` for readability and consistency

[hyperkai]

Bug report

Bug description:

bytearray() converts ' to \' while bytes() doesn't as shown below so bytearray() shouldn't do that for readability and consistency:

                   # ↓                        # ↓↓
print(bytearray(b"Let's go!")) # bytearray(b"Let\'s go!")
print(b"Let's go!")            # b"Let's go!"
         # ↑                        # ↑

In addition, both bytearray() and bytes() work for " properly as shown below:

                   # ↓                        # ↓
print(bytearray(b'Let"s go!')) # bytearray(b'Let"s go!')
print(b'Let"s go!')            # b'Let"s go!'
         # ↑                        # ↑

CPython versions tested on:

3.12

Operating systems tested on:

Windows

[brianschubert]

The source for bytearray.__repr__ mentions that it doesn't implement the "smart quote" functionality of str.__repr__:

cpython/Objects/bytearrayobject.c

Lines 1070 to 1073 in 1150321

	/* Mostly copied from string_repr, but without the
	"smart quote" functionality. */
	static PyObject *
	bytearray_repr_lock_held(PyObject *op)

so, it appears that this is an intended limitation and not a bug.

[serhiy-storchaka]

There is an old issue #71679 for sharing the code for repr between bytes and bytearray implementations. As a side effect it would handle quotes in the same way.