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

[Guido van Rossum]

On 8/30/06, Talin <talin at acm.org> wrote:
> I know this was shot down before, but I would still like to see a
> "characters" type - that is, a mutable sequence of wide characters, much
> like the Java StringBuffer class - to go along with "bytes". From my
> perspective, it makes perfect sense to have an "array of character" type
> as well as an "array of byte" type, and since the "array of byte" is
> simply called "bytes", then by extension the "array of character" type
> would be called "characters".
>
> Of course, both the 'array' and 'list' types already give you that, but
> "characters" would have additional string-like methods. (However since
> it is mutable, it would not be capable of producing views.)
>
> The 'characters' data type would be particularly optimized for
> character-at-a-time operations, i.e. building up a string one character
> at a time. An example use would be processing escape sequences in
> strings, where you are transforming the escaped string into its
> non-escaped equivalent.

The array module was always usable for this purpose (even for Unicode
characters) but it doesn't seem to have gotten any traction. So it
sounds like a YAGNI to me.

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