[Python-Dev] Python 3.x and bytes

[Ethan Furman]

Ethan Furman wrote:
> Greg Ewing wrote:
>> As for
>>
>>> --> some_other_var[3] == b'd'
>>
>> there ought to be a literal for specifying an integer
>> using an ascii character, so you could say something like
>>
>>   if some_other_var[3] == c'd':
>>
>> which would be equivalent to
>>
>>   if some_other_var[3] == ord(b'd')
>>
>> but without the overhead of computing the value each time
>> at run time.
> 
> Given that we can't change the behavior of b'abc'[1], that would be 
> better than what we have.
> 
> +1

Here's another thought, that perhaps is not backwards-incompatible...

some_var[3] == b'd'

At some point, the bytes class' __eq__ will be called -- is there a 
reason why we cannot have

1) a check to see if the bytes instance is length 1
2) a check to see if
    i) the other object is an int, and
    2) 0 <= other_obj < 256
3) if 1 and 2, make the comparison instead of returning NotImplemented?

This makes sense to me -- after all, the bytes class is an array of ints 
in range(256);  it is a special case, but doesn't feel any more special 
than passing an int into bytes() giving a string of that many null 
bytes; and it would get rid of the, in my opinion ugly, idiom of

some_var[i:i+1] == b'd'

It would also not require a new literal syntax.

~Ethan~