[Python-ideas] Adding 'bytes' as alias for 'latin_1' codec.

[Nick Coghlan]

On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 12:02 PM, INADA Naoki <songofacandy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Then, I hope bytes has a fast and efficient "format" method like:
>>>> b'{0} {1}'.format(23, b'foo')  # accepts int, float, bytes, bool, None
> 23 foo
>>>> b'{0}'.format('foo')  # raises TypeError for other types.
> TypeError

What method is invoked to convert the numbers to text? What encoding
is used to convert those numbers to text? How does this operation
avoid also converting the *bytes* object to text and then reencoding
it?

Bytes are not text. Struggling against that is a recipe for making
life hard for yourself in Python 3.

That said, there *may* still be a place for bytes.format(). However,
proper attention needs to be paid to the encoding issues, and the
question of how arbitrary types can be supported (including how to
handle the fast path for existing bytes() and bytearray() objects).
The pedagogic cost of making it even harder than it already is to
convince people that bytes are not text would also need to be
considered.

> And line buffering in binary mode is also nice.

The Python 3 IO stack already provides b'\n' based line buffering for
binary files.

Cheers,
Nick.

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