[Python-ideas] Make bytes __repr__ and __str__ representation different?

[Victor Stinner]

Hi,

While it may shock you, using bytes for "text" makes sense in some
areas. Please read the Motivation of the PEP 461:
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0461/#motivation

Victor

2017-11-21 15:37 GMT+01:00 Kirill Balunov <kirillbalunov at gmail.com>:
> Currently, __repr__ and __str__ representation of bytes is the same. Perhaps
> it is worth making them different, this will make it easier to visually
> perceive them as a container of integers from 0 to 255,
> instead of a mixture of printable and non-printable ascii characters. It is
> proposed:
>
> a) __str__ - leave unchanged
> b) __repr__ - represent as sequence of escaped hex
>
>>>> a = bytes([42,43,44,45,46])
>>>> a    # Current
> b'*+-./'
>>>> a    # Proposed
> b'\x2a\x2b\x2d\x2e\x2f'
>
> As you can see, the second example is more easily perceived as a sequence,
> in which '\' is also perceived as ',' in list or tuple. In addition, 2020 is
> close, it allows the new Pythonistas not to take them as an ascii mixture
> strings.
>
> With kind regards, -gdg
>
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