len() should always return something

[Marcus Wanner]

On 7/24/2009 3:04 PM, Roy Smith wrote:
> In article <0279f596$0$5185$c3e8da3 at news.astraweb.com>,
>  Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:50:03 +0200, superpollo wrote:
>>
>>>> Nah.  7 contains three bits, so len(7) should *clearly* return 3.
>>> and len("7") must return 8, by the same token... but wait!
>>>
>>>  >>> len("7")
>>> 1
>>>  >>>
>>>  >>>
>>> my python installation must me outdated ;-)
>> No no no, you're obviously using an awesome version of Python that can 
>> compress single-character strings to a single bit!
> 
> Compressing strings to a single bit is easy.  It's the uncompressing that's 
> tricky.
I assume you mean ord("7")%2?

First one to correctly decompress the value 0 into an ASCII character 
wins the title of the world's most capable hacker :p

Marcus