[issue6924] struct.unpack weird behavior with "bi" (byte then integer)

[Mark Dickinson]

Mark Dickinson <dickinsm at gmail.com> added the comment:

I think this is expected behaviour:  the key point is that structs can 
include padding bytes.  From the documentation:

"By default, C numbers are represented in the machine’s native format and 
byte order, and properly aligned by skipping pad bytes if necessary 
(according to the rules used by the C compiler)."

'Native' struct formats include padding, while 'standard' formats don't.

So a native struct with format 'BI' has one byte for the 'B', followed by 
3 padding bytes, followed by four bytes for the 'I'.  This exactly matches 
the way a C struct of the form {char c; int x;} would be organized in 
memory on that machine.

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assignee:  -> marketdickinson
nosy: +marketdickinson
resolution:  -> works for me
status: open -> closed

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue6924>
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