Bitsets in Python

Matt matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk
Thu Feb 5 08:50:57 EST 2004


Josiah Carlson <jcarlson at nospam.uci.edu> wrote:
> >   does Python have any native support for bitsets? I dont seem to see
> >   anything in the standard library?
> 
> What do you mean 'bitsets'?  Give a list of functionality of your 
> 'bitsets', and it will be easy for us to tell you whether Python 
> includes it.

BitSets crop up in (at least) C++ and Java. They allow you operate on
a sequence of bits using a friendlier interface than hacking about
with ^,|,& et al on integers. The Java BitSet interface:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/api/java/util/BitSet.html

I can't find anything like it in the standard library (If I've
overlooked it, I'd be chuffed to find out I'm wrong!). The OP might
find the following Cookbook recipe useful, though:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/219300

(At least I think so, I can't access the site at the moment...)

Matt



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