[Python-ideas] Add a builtin method to 'int' for base/radix conversion

[Nick Coghlan]

Yuvgoog Greenle wrote:
> I believe int(s, base) needs an inverse function to allow string
> representation with different bases. An example use case is 'hashing' a
> counter like video ID's on youtube, you could use a regular int
> internally and publish a shorter base-62 id 
> for links.
> 
> This subject was discussed 2.5 years ago:
> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-January/059789.html
> 
> I opened a feature request ticket:
> http://bugs.python.org/issue6783
> 
> Some of the questions that remain:
> 1. Whether this should be a method for int or a regular function in a
> standard library module like math.
> 2. What should the method/function be called? (base_convert, radix, etc)
> 
> What do you guys think?

This has been coming up for years and always gets bogged down in a
spelling argument (a method on int, a function in the math module and an
update to the str.format mini language would be the current contenders).

However, most of the actual real use cases for bases between 2 and 36
were dealt with by the addition of binary and octal output to string
formatting so the impetus to do anything about it is now a lot lower.

As far as bases between 37 and 62 go, that would involve first getting
agreement on extending int() to handle those bases by allowing case
sensitive digit parsing. Presumably that would use string lexical
ordering so that int('a', 37) > int('A', 37) and int('b', 37) would
raise an exception.

That would only be intuitive to someone that knows how ASCII based
alphanumeric ordering works though. Probably not an impossible sell, but
you would want a compelling use case (converting long strings of digits
into shorter link URLs is a pretty good one though - I've seen that in
places other than youtube).

Cheers,
Nick.

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