[Python-Dev] PEP: Adding data-type objects to Python

[Travis E. Oliphant]

Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> Travis E. Oliphant schrieb:
>> What is needed is a definitive way to describe data and then have
>>
>> array
>> struct
>> ctypes
>>
>> all be compatible with that same method.    That's why I'm proposing the 
>> PEP.  It's a unification effort not yet-another-method.
> 
> As I unification mechanism, I think it is insufficient. I doubt it
> can express all the concepts that ctypes supports.
> 

Please clarify what you mean.

Are you saying that a single object can't carry all the information 
about binary data that ctypes allows with it's multi-object approach?

I don't agree with you, if that is the case.  Sure, perhaps I've not 
included certain cases, so give an example.

Besides, I don't think this is the right view of "unification".  I'm not 
saying that ctypes should get rid of it's many objects used for 
interfacing with C-functions.

I'm saying we should introduce a single-object mechanism for describing 
binary data so that the many-object approach of c-types does not become 
some kind of de-facto standard.  C-types can "translate" this 
object-instance to its internals if and when it needs to.

In the mean-time, how are other packages supposed to communicate binary 
information about data with each other?

Remember the context that the data-format object is presented in.  Two 
packages need to share a chunk of memory (the package authors do not 
know each other and only have and Python as a common reference).  They 
both want to describe that the memory they are sharing has some 
underlying binary structure.

How do they do that? Please explain to me how the buffer protocol can be 
extended so that information about "what is in the memory" can be shared 
without a data-format object?

-Travis