[Python-Dev] PEP 467: Minor API improvements to bytes, bytearray, and memoryview

[Nick Coghlan]

On 7 June 2016 at 14:31, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
> On Jun 07, 2016, at 01:28 PM, Ethan Furman wrote:
>
>>* Add ``bytes.iterbytes``, ``bytearray.iterbytes`` and
>>   ``memoryview.iterbytes`` alternative iterators
>
> +1 but I want to go just a little farther.
>
> We can't change bytes.__getitem__ but we can add another method that returns
> single byte objects?  I think it's still a bit of a pain to extract single
> bytes even with .iterbytes().
>
> Maybe .iterbytes can take a single index argument (blech) or add a method like
> .byte_at(i).  I'll let you bikeshed on the name.

Perhaps:

 data.getbyte(i)
 data.iterbytes()

The rationale for "Why not a live view?" is that an iterator is simple
to define and implement, while we know from experience with memoryview
and the various dict views that live views are a minefield for folks
defining new container types. Since this PEP would in some sense
change what it means to implement a full "bytes-like object", it's
worth keeping implementation complexity in mind.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia