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Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 16:37:08 -0800
From: Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us>
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To: python-list@python.org
Subject: Re: Bytes indexing returns an int
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On 01/07/2014 04:15 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Ethan Furman wrote:
>> On 01/07/2014 07:19 AM, David Robinow wrote:
>>>
>>> Python 3 grudgingly allows the "abomination" of byte strings (is that
>>> what they're called?)
>>
>> No, that is *not* what they're called.  If you find any place in the
>> Python3 docs that does call them bytestrings please submit a bug report.
>
> The name of the class is "bytes", but what they represent *is* a string of
> bytes, hence "byte-string". It's a standard computer science term for
> distinguishing strings of text from strings of bytes.

I do not disagree with your statements, yet calling the bytes type a bytestring suggests things which are not true, such 
as indexing returning another bytestring.  The core-dev have thus agreed to not call it that in the documentation in 
hopes of lessening any confusion.


>> On 01/07/2014 08:12 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>> People trying to port these libraries from 2.7 to 3 run into this
>>> problem, and it causes them grief. This little difference between bytes
>>> in 2.7 and bytes in 3.x is a point of friction which makes porting
>>> harder, and I'm trying to understand the reason for it.
>>
>> If I recall correctly the way it was explained to me:
>>
>> bytes (lists, arrays, etc.) is a container, and when a container is
>> indexed you get whatever the container held.  If you slice the container
>> you get a smaller container with the appropriate items.
>
> (There's also a bytearray type, which is best considered as an array. Hence
> the name.) Why decide that the bytes type is best considered as a list of
> bytes rather than a string of bytes? It doesn't have any list methods, it
> looks like a string and people use it as a string. As you have discovered,
> it is an inconvenient annoyance that indexing returns an int instead of a
> one-byte byte-string.
>
> I think that, in hindsight, this was a major screw-up in Python 3.

The general consensus seems to be agreement (more or less) with that feeling, but alas it is too late to change it now.

--
~Ethan~