[Python-ideas] Run length encoding

[Neal Fultz]

Hello python-ideas,

I am very new to this, but on a different  forum and after a couple
conversations, I really wished Python came with run-length encoding
built-in; after all, it ships with zip, which is much more complicated :)

The general idea is to be able to go back and forth between two
representations of a sequence:

[1,1,1,1,2,3,4,4,3,3,3]

and

[(1, 4), (2, 1), (3, 1), (4, 2), (3, 3)]

where the first element is the data element, and the second is how many
times it is repeated.

I wrote an encoder/decoder in about 20 lines (
https://github.com/nfultz/rle.py/blob/master/rle.py ) and would like to
offer it for the next version; I think it might fit in nicely in the
itertools module, for example. I am curious about your thoughts.

Best,

-Neal
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