[Python-Dev] Python 3.x and bytes

[Georg Brandl]

On 18.05.2011 07:39, Greg Ewing wrote:
> Ethan Furman wrote:
> 
>> On the one hand we have the 'bytes are ascii data' type interface, and 
>> on the other we have the 'bytes are a list of integers between 0 - 256' 
>> interface.
> 
> I think the weird part is that there exists a literal for
> writing a byte array as an ascii string, and furthermore
> that it's the *only* kind of literal available for bytes.
> 
> Personally I think that the default literal syntax for
> bytes, and also the form produced by repr(), should have
> been something more neutral, such as hex, with the ascii
> form available for use when it makes sense. Currently if
> you want to write a bytes literal in hex, you have to
> say something like
> 
>     some_var = b'\xde\xad\xbe\xef'
> 
> which is ugly and unreadable. Much nicer would be
> 
>     some_var = x'deadbeef'

We do have

  bytes.fromhex('deadbeef')

Georg