[Python-Dev] bytes.from_hex()

[Greg Ewing]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>>>>>>"Guido" == Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> writes:

>     Guido> - b = bytes(t, enc); t = text(b, enc)
> 
> +1  The coding conversion operation has always felt like a constructor
> to me, and in this particular usage that's exactly what it is.  I
> prefer the nomenclature to reflect that.

This also has the advantage that it competely
avoids using the verbs "encode" and "decode"
and the attendant confusion about which direction
they go in.

e.g.

   s = text(b, "base64")

makes it obvious that you're going from the
binary side to the text side of the base64
conversion.

Greg