[Python-3000] base64 - bytes and strings

[Greg Ewing]

Talin wrote:
> I believe that converting a Unicode string to a base64 encoded form is 
> necessarily a 2-step process.

Well, yes, but only because base64 itself takes arbitrary
binary data as input, not Unicode strings. Encoding *anything*
other than binary data as base64 is going to require an
extra step in that sense.

> So the fact 
> that you can vary one encoding without changing the other would seem to 
> argue for the notion that they are distinct and independent.

I would say that the first encoding is outside the scope of
base64 and therefore irrelevant to this discussion.

--
Greg