Azure Blob Storage delete_blobs() raises TypeError: quote_from_bytes() expected bytes

[wallflower762]

• Package Name: azure-storage-blob
• Package Version: 12.13.1
• Operating System: Windows 10
• Python Version: 3.8.6

Describe the bug
Passing a list of BlobProperties or string blob names to delete_blobs raises TypeError: quote_from_bytes() expected bytes

To Reproduce

import os
from typing import List
from azure.storage.blob import BlobProperties, ContainerClient


def get_blob_connection() -> ContainerClient:
    return ContainerClient.from_connection_string(
        conn_str=os.environ["CONNECTION_STRING"],
        container_name="answer-products",
    )


def list_blobs(blob_connection: ContainerClient) -> List[BlobProperties]:
    prefix = 'a690b29f-88c5-4af2-9896-06c0752e9221/9_2100_19_1720_DP1/'
    blobs = [i for i in blob_connection.list_blobs(name_starts_with=prefix)]
    return blobs


def delete_blobs(
    blob_connection: ContainerClient, blob_list: List[BlobProperties]
):
    blob_connection.delete_blobs(blob_list)


def main():
    blob_connection = get_blob_connection()
    print('Connection created.')
    blob_list = list_blobs(blob_connection)
    print(f'Found {len(blob_list)} total blobs.')
    # blob_list = [str(b.name) for b in blob_list] # Also doesn't work, same exception
    delete_blobs(blob_connection, blob_list)
    print(f'Deleted {len(blob_list)} filtered blobs.')


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

The above code should give a stack trace like this:

File "c:/_DEV/prototyping/clean_up_qaqc_artifacts.py", line 40, in delete_blobs
    blob_connection.delete_blobs(blob_list)
  File "C:\_DEV\prototyping\lib\site-packages\azure\core\tracing\decorator.py", line 78, in wrapper_use_tracer
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\_DEV\prototyping\lib\site-packages\azure\storage\blob\_container_client.py", line 1358, in delete_blobs
    reqs, options = self._generate_delete_blobs_options(*blobs, **kwargs)
  File "C:\_DEV\prototyping\lib\site-packages\azure\storage\blob\_container_client.py", line 1262, in _generate_delete_blobs_options
    "/{}/{}{}".format(quote(container_name), quote(blob_name, safe='/~'), self._query_str),
  File "C:\Users\JMONKHOUSE\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\lib\urllib\parse.py", line 839, in quote
    return quote_from_bytes(string, safe)
  File "C:\Users\JMONKHOUSE\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\lib\urllib\parse.py", line 864, in quote_from_bytes
    raise TypeError("quote_from_bytes() expected bytes")
TypeError: quote_from_bytes() expected bytes

Expected behavior
The blobs listed are deleted from blob storage.

Screenshots
NA

Additional context
There appears to be a few mentions of this issue around the internet (although no existing issues as far as I could see):

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72065042/deleting-files-from-blob-typeerror-quote-from-bytes-expected-bytes

[jalauzon-msft]

Hi @wallflower762, thanks for reporting this! We'll investigate and get back to you ASAP.

[Stevenjin8]

Hi @wallflower762, could try modifying your delete_blobs function to

def delete_blobs(
    blob_connection: ContainerClient, blob_list: List[BlobProperties]
):
    blob_connection.delete_blobs(*blob_list)

according to the docs, the ContainerClient.delete_blobs method takes *blobs as its first argument. So if you pass in a list without unpacking it, you will end up with blob == ([...],)

[wallflower762]

Ah I see, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying Steven.

Looking at the docs within the code base, it indicates that the blobs parameter can be a list of str, list of dict, or list of BlobProperties

I found this a bit misleading.

[jalauzon-msft]

Thanks for confirming @wallflower762. I do agree that type hint is a bit misleading. We will make a change to properly document the type here as just Union[str, dict, BlobProperties] as that would be the proper way to type hint a *arg.