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It seems like a couple error messages in the curses module need correcting:
PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError, "insch requires 1 or 4 arguments");
http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/8ff2f4634ed8/Modules/_cursesmodule.c#l1322
PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError, "instr requires 0 or 3 arguments");
http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/8ff2f4634ed8/Modules/_cursesmodule.c#l1385
In both cases, "or" should be "to".

Given their signatures in the docs, I suspect it is more complicated than that. Perhaps the error messages are even correct. What does the code implement?

I just completed a patch to improve the documentation of these signatures (along with many others) in issue 15831. The correction here is consistent with my findings and revised documentation there.
As for the code, they are straightforward switch statements similar to many of the other methods in that module. I also did a manual test on one of the methods as a sanity check. I am preparing unit tests.

The situation is the same in 2.7 (and probably 3.2).

Attaching a patch with tests and fix for the default branch.

Uploading correct file.

Can't you use assertRaisesRegex?

Thanks for taking a look at this, and good question.
Without restructuring how the tests are done, I believe the short answer is no. The funny thing about this test module is that it does not actually have any unittest test cases. It just calls some functions. Failure happens if an exception is raised in any one of those functions.
See here, for example:
http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/59a2807872d5/Lib/test/test_curses.py#l35 

FYI, I created issue 16000 :) to switch test_curses to using unittest.TestCase.

The patch looks correct and complete, and still patches and passes the tests.
So, as far as I can see, this can be committed.

Do you mind to create a pull request on GitHub Chris?
In general the patch LGTM, but I don't think this minor typo fix needs tests for exact error messages. Adding new tests is good, but I think it is enough to test that corresponding functions accept the correct number of arguments and raise TypeError on incorrect number of arguments.

It was worth to honor Chris as the author of the patch in the commit message.