Python TypeError: character buffer object expected, personal misunderstanding

I got stuck in this error for a long time:

 TypeError: expected a character buffer object

I just understand that I misunderstood, this is something about the difference between a unicode string and a “simple” string, I tried to use the above code with a “normal” string, while I had to pass unicode one. Thus, skipping the plain "u" before the line breaks execution: / !!!

By the way, TypeError has been very obscure for me to this day.

please, can someone explain to me what i missed and why the “simple” line is NOT a “character buffer”?

you can reproduce the code below (extract and (c) from here :)

def maketransU(s1, s2, todel=u""):
    """Build translation table for use with unicode.translate().

    :param s1: string of characters to replace.
    :type s1: unicode
    :param s2: string of replacement characters (same order as in s1).
    :type s2: unicode
    :param todel: string of characters to remove.
    :type todel: unicode
    :return: translation table with character code -> character code.
    :rtype: dict
    """
    # We go unicode internally - ensure callers are ok with that.
    assert (isinstance(s1,unicode))
    assert (isinstance(s2,unicode))
    trans_tab = dict( zip( map(ord, s1), map(ord, s2) ) )
    trans_tab.update( (ord(c),None) for c in todel )
    return trans_tab

#BlankToSpace_table = string.maketrans (u"\r\n\t\v\f",u"     ")
BlankToSpace_table = maketransU (u"\r\n\t\v\f",u"     ")
def BlankToSpace(text) :
    """Replace blanks characters by realspaces.

    May be good to prepare for regular expressions & Co based on whitespaces.

    :param  text: the text to clean from blanks.
    :type  text: string
    :return: List of parts in their apparition order.
    :rtype: [ string ]
    """
    print text, type(text), len(text)
    try:
        out =  text.translate(BlankToSpace_table)
    except TypeError, e:
        raise
    return out

# for SO : the code below is just to reproduce what i did not understand
dummy = "Hello,\n, this is a \t dummy test!"
for s in (unicode(dummy), dummy):
    print repr(s)
    print repr(BlankToSpace(s))

:

u'Hello,\n, this is a \t dummy test!'
Hello,
, this is a      dummy test! <type 'unicode'> 32
u'Hello, , this is a   dummy test!'
'Hello,\n, this is a \t dummy test!'
Hello,
, this is a      dummy test! <type 'str'> 32

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/treetaggerwrapper.error.py", line 44, in <module>
    print repr(BlankToSpace(s))
  File "C:/treetaggerwrapper.error.py", line 36, in BlankToSpace
    out =  text.translate(BlankToSpace_table)
TypeError: expected a character buffer object