[Python-Dev] adding Construct to the standard library? (original) (raw)

Giovanni Bajo rasky at develer.com
Wed Apr 19 01:52:12 CEST 2006

tomer filiba <tomerfiliba at gmail.com> wrote:

the point is -- ctypes can define C types. not the TCP/IP stack. Construct can do both. it's a superset of ctype's typing mechanism. but of course both have the right to coexist -- ctypes is oriented at interop with dlls, and provides the mechanisms needed for that. Construst is about data structures of all sorts and kinds.

ctypes is a very helpful library as a builtin, and so is Construct. the two don't compete on a spot in the stdlib.

I don't agree. Both ctypes and construct provide a way to describe a binary-packed structure in Python terms: and this is an overload of functionality. When I first saw Construct, the thing that crossed my head was: "hey, yet another syntax to describe a binary-packed structure in Python". ctypes uses its description to interoperate with native libraries, while Construct uses its to interoperate with binary protocols. I didn't see a good reason why you shouldn't extend ctypes so to provide features that it is currently missing. It looks like it could be easily extended to do so.

Giovanni Bajo

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