len() should always return something

[Roy Smith]

In article <0279f596$0$5185$c3e8da3 at news.astraweb.com>,
 Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:50:03 +0200, superpollo wrote:
> 
> >> Nah.  7 contains three bits, so len(7) should *clearly* return 3.
> > 
> > and len("7") must return 8, by the same token... but wait!
> > 
> >  >>> len("7")
> > 1
> >  >>>
> >  >>>
> > my python installation must me outdated ;-)
> 
> No no no, you're obviously using an awesome version of Python that can 
> compress single-character strings to a single bit!

Compressing strings to a single bit is easy.  It's the uncompressing that's 
tricky.