method OptionParser#exit() from optparse.py causes UnicodeEncodeError on apport-retrace

[jbatista]

Running apport-retrace exits with an UnicodeEncodeError simply by running from the console (see bug #905826 for example) on Ubuntu Lucid, amd64.
The line is from method exit() from class OptionParser on file optparse.py.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: python2.6-minimal 2.6.5-1ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-36.79-generic 2.6.32.46+drm33.20
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-36-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Dec 17 23:37:49 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=pt:pt_PT:pt_BR:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=pt_PT.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: python2.6

[jbatista (jmnbatista)]

Can be solved by editing method exit() in class OptionParser of file /usr/lib/python2.6/optparse.py so that the line
  sys.stderr.write(msg)
reads instead, for example:
  sys.stderr.write(msg.encode('utf-8'))

This workaround quenches the error in apport-retrace.

[dino99 (9d9)]

Support for this version has ended