[Python-Dev] Why can't I encode/decode base64 without importing a module? (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Apr 23 03:22:51 CEST 2013

--Guido van Rossum (sent from Android phone) On Apr 22, 2013 6:09 PM, "R. David Murray" <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:

_On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:16:20 +1200, Greg Ewing <_ greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote: > Victor Stinner wrote: > > The last proposition is to add transform() and untransform() methods > > to bytes and str types. ... If I remember > > correctly, the missing point is how to define which types are > > supported by a codec > > Also, for any given codec, which direction is "transform" > and which is "untransform"? You transform into the encoding, and untransform out of the encoding. Do you have an example where that would be ambiguous? > Also also, what's so special about base64 et al that they > deserve an ultra-special way of invoking them, instead of > having to import a class or function like you do for > every other piece of library functionality? You can ask the same question about all the other codecs. (And that question has indeed been asked in the past.)

Except for rot13. :-)

(One answer is that they used to work in Python2...but the longer we go without restoring the functionality to Python3, the weaker that particular argument becomes.)

--David

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/guido%40python.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20130422/5b2aff1e/attachment-0001.html>

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list