[Python-Dev] bytes.from_hex() [Was: PEP 332 revival in coordination with pep 349?]

Ian Bicking ianb at colorstudy.com
Sat Feb 18 01:06:13 CET 2006


Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> Ian Bicking wrote:
> 
>>That str.encode(unicode_encoding) implicitly decodes strings seems like
>>a flaw in the unicode encodings, quite seperate from the existance of
>>str.encode.  I for one really like s.encode('zlib').encode('base64') --
>>and if the zlib encoding raised an error when it was passed a unicode
>>object (instead of implicitly encoding the string with the ascii
>>encoding) that would be fine.
>>
>>The pipe-like nature of .encode and .decode works very nicely for
>>certain transformations, applicable to both unicode and byte objects.
>>Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
> 
> 
> The way you use it, it's a matter of notation only: why
> is
> 
> zlib(base64(s))
> 
> any worse? I think it's better: it doesn't use string literals to
> denote function names.

Maybe it isn't worse, but the real alternative is:

   import zlib
   import base64

   base64.b64encode(zlib.compress(s))

Encodings cover up eclectic interfaces, where those interfaces fit a 
basic pattern -- data in, data out.

-- 
Ian Bicking  /  ianb at colorstudy.com  /  http://blog.ianbicking.org


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