[Python-Dev] Python 3.x and bytes

[Raymond Hettinger]

On May 17, 2011, at 5:27 PM, Ethan Furman wrote:

> The bytes type in Python 3 does not feel very consistent.
> 
> For example:
> 
> --> some_var = 'abcdef'
> --> some_var
> 'abcdef'
> --> some_var[3]
> 'd'
> --> some_other_var = b'abcdef'
> --> some_other_var
> b'abcdef'
> --> some_other_var[3]
> 100
> 
> 
> On the one hand we have the 'bytes are ascii data' type interface,

This is incidental.  Bytes can and often do contain data with non-ascii encoded text,  plain binary data, or structs, or raw data read off a disk, etc.

> and on the other we have the 'bytes are a list of integers between 0 - 256' interface.  And trying to use the two is not intuitive:
> 
> --> some_other_var[3] == b'd'
> False
> 
> When I'm parsing a .dbf file and extracting field types from the byte stream, I'm not thinking, "okay, 67 is a Character field" -- what I'm thinking is, "b'C' is a Character field".
> 
> Considering that ord() still works fine, I'm not sure why it was done this way.
> 
> Is there code out there that is using this "list of int's" interface,

Yes.

> or is there time to make changes to bytes?

No.


Raymond