[Tables] autorest generated code incompatible with Python 3

[alexleach]

• Package Name: azure-data-tables
• Package Version: 12.7.0
• Operating System: Mac OS
• Python Version: 3.14

Describe the bug

TLDR; Please re-run autorest to update the auto-generated azure-data-table Swagger code, as per #31862

It was last run in October 2023, and it seems that back then autorest generated Python 2 code when this library is meant only to support Python 3?

---

I noticed in _serialization.py, it is assumed unicode is a global type. For example, in RawDeserializer.deserialize_from_text:-

if isinstance(data, unicode):  # type: ignore
    # If I'm Python 2.7 and unicode XML will scream if I try a "fromstring" on unicode string
    data_as_str = data_as_str.encode(encoding="utf-8")  # type: ignore

And in RawDeserializer.serialize_unicode:-

if isinstance(data, unicode):  # type: ignore
    # Don't change it, JSON and XML ElementTree are totally able
    # to serialize correctly u'' strings
    return data

However:-

Since Python 3.0, the language’s str type contains Unicode characters, meaning any string created using "unicode rocks!", 'unicode rocks!', or the triple-quoted string syntax is stored as Unicode.

Ref: https://docs.python.org/3/howto/unicode.html#the-string-type

Therefore, since Python 3.0, unicode does not exist:

$ python3 -c 'print(isinstance("foo", unicode))'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
    print(isinstance("foo", unicode))
                            ^^^^^^^
NameError: name 'unicode' is not defined

---

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. I've not a full MWE, but I have this method:-

    async def get_by_site_id(self, site_id: str) -> Optional[Site]:
        entities = list(self._table.query_entities(f"RowKey eq '{site_id}'", results_per_page=1))
        if not entities:
            return None
        return Site.from_entity(entities[0])

And this traceback:-

Exception has occurred: NameError
name 'unicode' is not defined
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.14/site-packages/azure/data/tables/_generated/_serialization.py", line 874, in serialize_unicode
    if isinstance(data, unicode):  # type: ignore
                        ^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.14/site-packages/azure/data/tables/_generated/_serialization.py", line 857, in serialize_basic
    return cls.serialize_unicode(data)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.14/site-packages/azure/data/tables/_generated/_serialization.py", line 812, in serialize_data
    return self.serialize_basic(data, data_type, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.14/site-packages/azure/data/tables/_generated/_serialization.py", line 727, in url
    output = self.serialize_data(data, data_type, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.14/site-packages/azure/data/tables/_generated/operations/_operations.py", line 925, in query_entities
    "url": self._serialize.url("self._config.url", self._config.url, "str", skip_quote=True),
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.14/site-packages/azure/core/tracing/decorator.py", line 119, in wrapper_use_tracer
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.14/site-packages/azure/data/tables/_models.py", line 351, in _get_next_cb
    return self._command(
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.14/site-packages/azure/core/paging.py", line 82, in __next__
    self._response = self._get_next(self.continuation_token)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.14/site-packages/azure/core/paging.py", line 136, in __next__
    return next(self._page_iterator)
  File "/Users/alex/Code/my_app/core/storage/azure_tables.py", line 108, in get_by_site_id
    entities = list(self._table.query_entities(f"RowKey eq '{site_id}'", results_per_page=1))

Expected behavior
The bug to be in my code, not the azure-data-tables Python SDK! 😲

Screenshots
N/A

Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

[alexleach]

Actually sorry, it's fine, the exceptions are caught. I had just checked too many Breakpoint options in my VS Code debugging session. Will close.