[Python-3000] PyString C API

[Guido van Rossum]

On 8/25/06, Fredrik Lundh <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
> > the fact that it's *impossible* to offer a view subtype that's com-
> > patible with the current PyString C API might be an issue, though.
>
> what's the current thinking wrt. the PyString C API, btw.  has any of the
> various bytes/wide string design proposals looked at the C API level ?

No... I was hoping to get to that but ended up spending unanticipated
time on fixing comparisons. Maybe the first step ought to be similar
to what was done for int/long unification -- keep both the PyString_
and PyUnicode_ APIs around but make the PyString_ APIs do whatever
they do on Unicode objects instead. Each use of certain macros will
still have to be patched, obviously; e.g. a common way to create a
string is to call PyString_FromStringAndSize(NULL, nbytes) and then to
call something like memcpy(PyString_AS_STRING(obj), source, nbytes) --
this won't work of course.

There are a bunch of PyBytes_ APIs that can be used in those places
where 8-bit strings are really used to hold binary data, not
characters. These have been modeled on the PyString APIs (even with
AS_STRING and GET_SIZE macros). See Include/bytesobject.h.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)