[Python-3000] Making more effective use of slice objects in Py3k

[Jim Jewett]

On 8/26/06, Josiah Carlson <jcarlson at uci.edu> wrote:
> Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at iinet.net.au> wrote:

> > There are a couple of existing workarounds for
> > this: buffer() objects, and the start/stop arguments
> > to a variety of string methods. Neither of these is
> > particular convenient to work with, and buffer() is
> > slated to go away in Py3k.

> Ahh, but string views offer a significantly more
> reasonable mechanism.

As I understand it, Nick is suggesting that slice objects be used as a
sequence (not just string) view.


> string = stringview(string)
> ...  We can toss all of the optional start, stop
> arguments to all string functions, and replace them
> with either of the following:
>     result = stringview(string, start=None, stop=None).method(args)

>     string = stringview(string)
>     result = string[start:stop].method(args)

Under Nick's proposal, I believe we could replace it with just the final line.

    result = string[start:stop].method(args)

though there is a chance that (when you want to avoid copying) he is
suggesting explicit slice objects such as

    view=slice(start, stop)
    result = view(string).method(args)

-jJ