[Python-Dev] an idea for improving struct.unpack api

[Michael Hudson]

Ilya Sandler <ilya at bluefir.net> writes:

> A problem:
>
> The current struct.unpack api works well for unpacking C-structures where
> everything is usually unpacked at once, but it
> becomes  inconvenient when unpacking binary files where things
> often have to be unpacked field by field. Then one has to keep track
> of offsets, slice the strings,call struct.calcsize(), etc...

IMO (and E), struct.unpack is the primitive atop which something more
sensible is built.  I've certainly tried to build that more sensible
thing at least once, but haven't ever got the point of believing what
I had would be applicable to the general case... maybe it's time to
write such a thing for the standard library.

Cheers,
mwh

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