[Python-Dev] adding Construct to the standard library? (original) (raw)
tomer filiba tomerfiliba at gmail.com
Mon Apr 17 23:38:26 CEST 2006
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hello folks
after several people (several > 10) contacted me and said "IMHO 'construct' is a good candidate for stdlib", i thought i should give it a try. of course i'm not saying it should be included right now, but in 6 months time, or such a timeframe (aiming at python 2.6? some 2.5.x release?)
a little intro: "Construct" ( http://pyconstruct.sourceforge.net/) is a library for declaratively defining data structures at the bit-level. these constructs can be used to parse raw data into objects, or build objects into raw data. you can see a couple of examples at http://pyconstruct.wikispaces.com/examples being "data structures" they are not limited to simple structures -- they can be linked lists, for example, or an enitre efl32 file, with sections and pointers (included in the distribution). currently i'm writing a parser of ext2 file systems, to allow inspecting file systems without mounting.
why include Construct?
- the struct module is very nice, but very limited and non-pythonic as well
- pure python (no platform/security issues)
- lots of people need to parse and build binary data structures, it's not an esoteric library
- license: public domain
- quite a large user base for such a short time (proves the need of the community)
- easy to use and extend (follows the componentization pattern)
- declarative: you don't need to write executable code for most cases
why not:
- the code is (very) young. stable and all, but less than a month on the loose.
- new features may still be added / existing ones may be changed in a non-backwards-compatible manner
so why am i saying this now, instead of waiting a few months for it to maturet? well, i wanted to get feedback. those of you who have seen/used the library, please tell me what you think:
- is it suitable for a standard library?
- what more features would you want?
- any changes you think are necessary?
i'm starting this now, in order to have a mature version in the (near) future. thanks,
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