Trouble Creating a PMT Vector of Bytes Variable in GRC

[Jeff S]

Hi, everyone.

I started looking into message passing.  I wanted to create a variable of bytes 
using a PMT.  I can create a variable z using:

    pmt.init_u8vector(6, [0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03,0x04,0x05])

And my message strobe:

    pmt.cons(pmt.PMT_NIL, z)

Which seems to work with my flow graph, giving an output of:

    * MESSAGE DEBUG PRINT PDU VERBOSE *
    ()
    pdu_length = 6
    contents = 
    0000: 00 01 02 03 04 05 

The problem I am having is when I try something as a variable such as:

    pmt.init_u8vector(6, [0xFF, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03,0x04,0x05])

It really messes thing up with GNU Radio Companion (v3.8.2.0, Python 3.6.9) and 
gives error messages that seem to relate to Unicode characters (below).  Is 
there a way to define a byte array (u8vector) without getting into Unicode 
character issues?

Thanks.
Jeff

GRC Errors follow:
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/report.py:13: DeprecationWarning: the imp 
module is deprecated in favour of importlib; see the module's documentation for 
alternative uses
  import fnmatch, glob, traceback, errno, sys, atexit, locale, imp, stat
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/ParamWidgets.py", 
line 140, in _apply_change
    self._update_gui()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/ParamWidgets.py", 
line 110, in _update_gui
    self.set_tooltip_text(self.param.format_tooltip_text())
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/ParamWidgets.py", 
line 172, in set_tooltip_text
    self._input.set_tooltip_text(text)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't encode character '\udcff' in position 
30: surrogates not allowed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/Application.py", 
line 557, in _handle_action
    flow_graph_update()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/Application.py", 
line 133, in flow_graph_update
    fg.update()
  File 
"/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/canvas/flowgraph.py", 
line 205, in update
    self.create_labels()
  File 
"/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/canvas/flowgraph.py", 
line 508, in create_labels
    element.create_labels(cr)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/canvas/block.py", 
line 174, in create_labels
    for param in self.params.values() if (param.hide not in ('all', 'part') or 
(param.dtype == 'id' and force_show_id))]
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/canvas/block.py", 
line 174, in <listcomp>
    for param in self.params.values() if (param.hide not in ('all', 'part') or 
(param.dtype == 'id' and force_show_id))]
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/canvas/param.py", 
line 161, in format_block_surface_markup
    label=Utils.encode(self.name), 
value=Utils.encode(self.pretty_print().replace('\n', ' '))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/Utils.py", line 
118, in encode
    return GLib.markup_escape_text(valid_utf8)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/overrides/GLib.py", line 489, in 
markup_escape_text
    return GLib.markup_escape_text(text, length)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't encode character '\udcff' in position 
2: surrogates not allowed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File 
"/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/VariableEditor.py", line 
198, in set_value
    self.set_tooltip_text(evaluated)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't encode character '\udcff' in position 
2: surrogates not allowed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File 
"/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/VariableEditor.py", line 
198, in set_value
    self.set_tooltip_text(evaluated)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't encode character '\udcff' in position 
2: surrogates not allowed
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File 
"/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/gnuradio/grc/gui/VariableEditor.py", line 
198, in set_value
    self.set_tooltip_text(evaluated)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't encode character '\udcff' in position 
2: surrogates not allowed

msg_test_00.png
Description: msg_test_00.png