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

[Ron Adam]

Bengt Richter wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 09:59:38 +0100, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22Martin_v=2E_L=F6wis=22?= <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:

> Thinking about bytes recently, it occurs to me that bytes are really not intrinsically
> numeric in nature. They don't necessarily represent uint8's. E.g., a binary file is
> really a sequence of bit octets in its most primitive and abstract sense.

In that you would want to do different types of operations on single 
byte (an octet) than you would on str, or integer,  I agree.

Storing byte information as 16 or 32 bits ints could take up a rather 
lot of memory in some cases.

I don't think it's been clarified yet weather the bytes() type would be 
implemented in C where it could be a single object with access to it's 
individual bytes via indexing, or python list type object which stores 
integers, chars or some other byte length object like octets.

My first impression is that it would be done in C with a way to access 
and change the actual bytes.  So a Python octet type wouldn't be needed. 
  But if it is implemented as a Python subclass of list or array, then 
an octet type would probably also be desired.


> Bottom line thought: binary octets aren't numeric ;-)

+1

Cheers,
    Ronald Adam