For those features, the potential user community is *much* larger than for the feature under discussion, and I feel I would waste my time for adding a feature that only few users ever need.
And yet you continue the discussion? I talk about it because /I/ find the functionality useful, I believe /others/ would find it useful if they were put in similar situations as I, and I believe it adds flexibility to a module (which I think is positive).
If you would like to debate the size of the user community: any significanly-large user community should have come up with a standard, pure-Python solution to the problem by now which would just wait for integration. This is IMO the process that should be followed for all library extensions: the library should be developed elsewhere, and wait some time for API and implementation stabilization. Only *then* it become candidate for inclusion into Python.
If every modification to Python required a community of people, who all joined together to advocate something, then nothing would ever get done. People would be spending all their time trying to gather groups of people to agree with them that functionality K is necessary. Thankfully there has been cases in the past where someone has said, "hey, this thing could really use X", some people agree, some people disagree, a sample implementation is done, and sometimes it is accepted. I'm not even saying that we should add a new module. I'm not even saying we should add a new function to a module. Heck, I'm not even asking for a new argument to a function that previously existed. I am, quite literally, asking for the equivalent of less than one bit in a flag (there are currently 22 format/endian characters, which are all orthogonal, which would require 5 bits, if they were flags). The API already exists. The framework already exists. I'm not asking for Python to interpret something that was valid before as something different now. I'm asking for the equivalent of a previously invalid flag, to become valid, in order to expose previously existing translation mechanisms, whose use can be found in databases, network protocols, encryption, etc. Try to read the above paragraph outside of the context of struct and the RFE. Does it make sense to include the change now? If every request to interpret a new flag required significant community involvement, goodness, would it take an act of Guido to get a commit done? Have a good day Martin, - Josiah