Create transaction error - RuntimeError: Unexpected XML node type: <class 'float'>

[ittus]

Description:

I created a transaction with following code:

braintree.Transaction.sale({
            "amount": 9.9,
            "payment_method_token": payment_method_token,
            "options": {
                "submit_for_settlement": True
            }
        }
)

or

from decimal import Decimal
braintree.Transaction.sale({
            "amount": Decimal(9.9),
            "payment_method_token": payment_method_token,
            "options": {
                "submit_for_settlement": True
            }
        }
)

and got error:

../python3.4/site-packages/braintree/util/generator.py", line 70, in __generate_node
    raise RuntimeError("Unexpected XML node type: " + str(type(value)))
RuntimeError: Unexpected XML node type: <class 'float'>

If I do

braintree.Transaction.sale({
            "amount": str(9.9), # convert to string
            "payment_method_token": payment_method_token,
            "options": {
                "submit_for_settlement": True
            }
        }
)

or

braintree.Transaction.sale({
            "amount": 9, # integer value
            "payment_method_token": payment_method_token,
            "options": {
                "submit_for_settlement": True
            }
        }
)

then it's ok.

Why doesn't braintree/util/generator.py check for float type?

Enviroment: braintree==3.35.0 python3.4

[EvanHahn]

The main reason comes from a lack of precision. 1.1 + 2.2 in Python is 3.3000000000000003. Floating point imprecision may be acceptable in some cases, but not with money. That's the biggest reason why we don't support them.

In any case, the amount property is only documented as a string or a Decimal, so we'd recommend sticking to those. It happens to be "smart" enough to convert ints, but that's undocumented and therefore unsupported.

[EvanHahn]

We're going to close this issue. Feel free to open a new issue if you run into other problems!