[Python-3000] bytes & Py_TPFLAGS_BASETYPE (original) (raw)

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Tue Sep 18 02:21:38 CEST 2007

Guido van Rossum wrote:

I understand. But bytes are still in flux (see the repeated requests for immutable bytes)

Moreover, my feeling is that immutable byte should be the default, and if you want mutable bytes you should have to ask for it.

This would make bytes more symmetrical with strings, where immutability is the default, and if you want mutability you use an array.array('c') or whatever the equivalent will be in py3k.

It would also help to settle the question of whether b"xyz" should be mutable -- clearly not, for symmetry with strings.

-- Greg

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