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

[Travis E. Oliphant]

Greg Ewing wrote:
> Travis Oliphant wrote:
> 
>> The 'bit' type re-intprets the size information to be in units of "bits" 
>> and so implies a "bit-field" instead of another data-format.
> 
> Hmmm, okay, but now you've got another orthogonality
> problem, because you can't distinguish between e.g.
> a 5-bit signed int field and a 5-bit unsigned int
> field.

Good point.

> 
> It might be better not to consider "bit" to be a
> type at all, and come up with another way of indicating
> that the size is in bits. Perhaps
> 
>     'i4'   # 4-byte signed int
>     'i4b'  # 4-bit signed int
>     'u4'   # 4-byte unsigned int
>     'u4b'  # 4-bit unsigned int
> 

I like this.  Very nice.  I think that's the right way to look at it.

> (Next we can have an argument about whether bit
> fields should be packed MSB-to-LSB or vice versa...:-)

I guess we need another flag / attribute to indicate that.

The other thing that needs to be discussed at some point may be a way to 
indicate the floating-point format.  I've basically punted on this and 
just meant 'f' to mean "platform float"

Thus, you can't use the data-type object to pass information between two 
platforms that don't share a common floating point representation.

-Travis