[Python-Dev] str with base (original) (raw)

Jeremy Hylton jeremy at alum.mit.edu
Tue Jan 17 05:03:17 CET 2006

It never occured to me that str() would behave like int() for this case. It makes complete sense to me that a factory for numbers would ask about the base of the number. What would the base of a string be, except in a few limited cases? str([1, 2], 4) doesn't make any sense. You might argue that I wasn't all that bright as a beginner <0.5 wink>.

I think it shouldn't be changed, because the second positional argument only works for a small number of the panoply types that can be passed to str(). It would be fine to have a function for this hiding somewhere, perhaps even as a method on numbers, but str() is too generic.

Jeremy

On 1/16/06, Alex Martelli <aleaxit at gmail.com> wrote:

Is it finally time in Python 2.5 to allow the "obvious" use of, say, str(5,2) to give '101', just the converse of the way int('101',1) gives 5? I'm not sure why str has never allowed this obvious use -- any bright beginner assumes it's there and it's awkward to explain why it's not!-). I'll be happy to propose a patch if the BDFL blesses this, but I don't even think it's worth a PEP... it's an inexplicable though long-standing omission (given the argumentative nature of this crowd I know I'll get pushback, but I still hope the BDFL can Pronounce about it anyway;-).

Alex

Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev at python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/jeremy%40alum.mit.edu

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list