[Python-Dev] Silent Deprecation Candidate -- buffer()

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> mal wrote:
> 
> 
>>>does anyone have any real-life use cases?  I've never been
>>>able to use it for anything, and cannot recall ever seeing it
>>>being used by anyone else...
>>
>  
> 
>>I use it in real-life applications to wrap binary data.
> 
> 
> can you elaborate?  how do you use it? 

As I said, I wrap binary data in buffer objects; these can
be memory-mapped files, strings containing binary data or
any other Python object implementing the buffer interface.

IMHO, buffer() is the only way to signify non-string data
while maintaining a string like interface.

> could it be replaced
> by something simpler, and still work in your application?
> 
> would something like this work?
> 
>     class buffer(object):
>         def __len__(...)
>         def __getitem__(...)
>         def __getslice__(...)

Provided these return buffer objects, yes.

>     class basestring(buffer):
>         ...
> 
>     class string(basestring):
>         ...
> 
>     class unicode(basestring):
>         ...

I don't see the simplification, though ;-)

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
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