How to use a 5 or 6 bit integer in Python?

[Hartmut Goebel]

Hi,

Glen Wheeler wrote:

>   Component ints will either be 0-63 or 0-31.  In a single run of the
> program, this will not change throughout.
>   The key tuples range in length from 1-64, depending on at what stage
> the program is currently at.  Every tuple will have the same length at
> some point; the greatest possible distance in length from any two
> tuples is 1.

I'm afraid, I'll mix up some of your data-structure, but here are my 
thoughts:

- pack the key-tuples into a string using pack; you may even pack 4
   intergers into one byte since the values range from 1-64 (which is
   equivalent to 0-63).

- if you need easy access to eg. the last emlement of the tuple, keep it
   seperate. Eg: key = ('xdef', 12)

- As far as I remeber, you wrote something about max. 64 entries. What
   about using an array/list here? Array may need a lot less memory
   (depending on the muber of elements of course).

Only my 2 cents.

-- 
Regards
Hartmut Goebel

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