C pointers/Python

[Lonnie Princehouse]

"len" is a built-in function in Python, so you probably don't want to
use it as a variable name.

What is this C code actually trying to do?  Don't try to transliterate
it; instead, read up on how lists and slicing work, and rewrite it in
Python starting from a higher level of abstraction.

One hint- you can copy the same datum many times without a while
loop...

# reassign sub-list interval [i, j-1]
buffer[i:j] = [data] * (j-i)

# reassign the entire list
buffer[:] = [data] * len(buffer)