[Python-ideas] a new bytestring type?

Mark Janssen dreamingforward at gmail.com
Mon Jan 6 01:45:28 CET 2014


> "arrays of integers"?  You mean, unsigned short ints?  There's an
> important difference.  One references an abstraction, and one
> references a concrete machine type.
>
> The other consideration is knowing what you mean by "string", if you
> mean something to be interpreted textually, then the convention is to
> use unsigned chars to document your intentions, which "technically" is
> the same (as far as memory layout is concerned).  (I say "technically"
> because there is some space reserved for endian-ness which can change
> the bit ordering.)

One mistake I already wish to correct is in the last sentence:
"endian-ness" *always* changes or refers to the bit ordering.
Secondly, the term only applies to numerical (always integer, AFAIK)
representation -- not for chars.

Trying to be complete...

MarkJ


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