[Python-Dev] Fixes for imageop module

[Sjoerd Mullender]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
>>>>>Hm.  Anybody who uses the imageop module currently on Linux will find
>>>>>their programs broken.  The strings manipulated by imageop all end up
>>>>>either being written to a file or handed to some drawing code, and
>>>>>changing the byte order would definitely break things!
>>>>
>>>>That's why I asked.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>So I don't think this is an acceptable change.  I take it that for
>>>>>IRIX, the byte order implied by the old code is simply wrong?  Maybe
>>>>>the module can be given a global (shrudder?) byte order setting that
>>>>>you can change but that defaults to the old setting?
>>>>
>>>>The problem is, the documentation says: "This is the same format as used 
>>>>by gl.lrectwrite() and the imgfile module."  This implies the byte order 
>>>>that you get on the SGI which is opposite of what you get on Intel. The 
>>>>code produced the correct results on the SGI, but not on Intel.
>>>
>>>
>>>Your fix would be okay if until now it was *only* used on IRIX with
>>>gl.lrectwrite() and/or the imgfile module.  But how can we prove that?
>>
>>I don't know.
>>
>>
>>>>(By the way, I'm away from computers for a week starting tomorrow 
>>>>extremely early.)
>>>
>>>
>>>It's okay to way a week before making a decision.
>>
>>I'm back (and have been this week).  Any thoughts about a decision?
> 
> 
> I suggest that you implement a way to change the endianness of the
> operations.  A global flag in the module is fine.  It should default
> to the historic behavior, and there should be a call to switch it to
> the behavior you want.

I submitted a patch (874358) to SourceForge.

-- 
Sjoerd Mullender <sjoerd at acm.org>