hello folks<br><br>after several people (several > 10) contacted me and said "<font face="Courier, Monospaced">IMHO 'construct' is a good candidate for stdlib</font>",<br>i thought i should give it a try. of course i'm
<span style="font-weight: bold;">not</span> saying it should be included right now, but in 6 months time, or such a
<br>timeframe (aiming at python 2.6? some 2.5.x release?)<br><br>a little intro:<br>"Construct" (<a href="http://pyconstruct.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://pyconstruct.sourceforge.net/</a>) is a library for declaratively defining data structures at the bit-level.
<br>these constructs can be used to parse raw data into objects, or build objects into raw data. you can see a couple <br>of examples at <a href="http://pyconstruct.wikispaces.com/examples" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://pyconstruct.wikispaces.com/examples
</a><br>being "data structures" they are not limited to simple structures -- they can be linked lists, for example, or an enitre<br>efl32 file, with sections and pointers (included in the distribution). currently i'm writing a parser of ext2 file systems,
<br>to allow inspecting file systems without mounting.<br><br>why include Construct?<br>* the struct module is very nice, but very limited and non-pythonic as well<br>* pure python (no platform/security issues)<br>* lots of people need to parse and build binary data structures, it's not an esoteric library
<br>* license: public domain<br>* quite a large user base for such a short time (proves the need of the community)<br>* easy to use and extend (follows the componentization pattern)<br>* declarative: you don't need to write executable code for most cases
<br><br>why not:<br>* the code is (very) young. stable and all, but less than a month on the loose. <br>* new features may still be added / existing ones may be changed in a non-backwards-compatible manner<br><br>so why am i saying this now, instead of waiting a few months for it to maturet?
<br>well, i wanted to get feedback.
those of you who have seen/used the library, please tell me what you think:<br>* is it suitable for a standard library?<br>* what more features would you want?<br>* any changes you think are necessary?<br><br>i'm starting this now, in order to have a mature version in the (near) future.
<br>thanks,<br><br>-tomer<br>