[Python-Dev] strop vs. string (original) (raw)

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Sat, 26 May 2001 17:47:47 +0200

Tim Peters wrote:

The buffer object has been neglected for years: is that because it's in prime shape, or because nobody cares about it enough to maintain it? "The bug" has been known for years without any action taken to address it; the docs give up in spots and nobody addresses that either (like "The current policy seems to state that these characters may be multi-byte characters" -- well, yes or no?); the builtin buffer() function isn't called anywhere in the std test suite; the file object still has an undocumented readinto() method that just confuses people who bump into it; and it's so obscure in daily life that it appears Guido didn't even think of it when adding iterators for the other sequence types. I expect that answers my question . Is someone (Greg? MAL?) going to champion it now? That would be cool.

I believe that nobody really likes the buffer interface enough to let the world know about it, except maybe Greg ;-)

Even the idea of replacing the usage of strings as data buffers with buffer object didn't get very far; common habits are simply hard to break.

About combining strop and buffers and strings, don't forget unicodeobject.c: that's got oodles of basically duplicate code too. /F suggested dealing with the minor differences via maintaining one code file that gets compiled multiple times w/ appropriate #defines.

Hmm, that only saves us a few kB in source, but certainly not in the object files.

The better idea would be making the types subclass from a generic abstract string object -- I just don't know how this will be possible with Guido's type patches. We'll just have to wait, I guess.

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