[Numpy-discussion] Py3 merge

[Pauli Virtanen]

ma, 2009-12-07 kello 09:12 -0500, Michael Droettboom kirjoitti:
> > We need character arrays for the astro people. I assume these will be 
> > byte arrays. Maybe Michael will weigh in here.
>
> I can't find in the thread where removing byte arrays (meaning arrays of 
> fixed-length non-unicode strings) was suggested -- though changing the 
> dtype specifier for them was.  That is 'S' would change to 'B' in 
> python3 (with some deprecation period for 'S'), and 'U' would remain 
> 'U'.  That seems acceptable to me, as long as we have some way to have 
> fixed-length 8-bit strings.  Hopefully all the new chararray unit tests 
> will help with this transition.

Removal was suggested, with the motivation that people should just use
byte arrays instead. I think we're not going to remove it at the moment,
though.

The character 'B' is already by unsigned bytes -- I wonder if it's easy
to support 'B123' and plain 'B' at the same time, or whether we have to
pick a different letter for "byte strings". 'y' would be free...

The chararray unit tests are all presently failing, so they are
definitely useful :)

	Pauli