Feature Requests item #686323, was opened at 2003-02-13 20:13 Message generated for change (Settings changed) made by rhettinger You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=355470&aid=686323&group_id=5470

Category: Extension Modules Group: None Status: Open Resolution: Later Priority: 4 Submitted By: paul rubin (phr)

Summary: Minor array module enhancements

Initial Comment: 1) I notice that array('B', (2,3,4)) throws an error saying the 2nd arg must be a list or string. That is, array('B', [2,3,4]) is legal but using the tuple (2,3,4) is not. The limitation doesn't seem harmful, but I also don't see any good reason for it. May as well remove it.

2) Of more usefulness (and maybe of more controversy), I think the byte array methods should accept string arguments, for example a = array('B', 'abc') a.append('def') should do the obvious thing. That gives a natural way to build up a string in pieces instead of making a list of strings and doing the counterintuitive ''.join(x) maneuver. Appending to byte arrays is the usual way to build up a string in Java, if that matters. So I favor this change too.

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Comment By: Raymond Hettinger (rhettinger) Date: 2003-04-24 05:48

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Added the first request as arraymodule.c 2.88

I'm passing on the second request for now. Auto-promoting the argument entails attempting to construct a new array object of the same type as that being extended. That is a bit cumbersome but doable. It also requires that any array creation errors be trapped and re-explained the context of array.extend().

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Comment By: paul rubin (phr) Date: 2003-02-13 23:42

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You're correct, second request should be for extend rather than append.

That is,

a = array('B', 'abc') a.extend('def')

should do the obvious thing.

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Comment By: Raymond Hettinger (rhettinger) Date: 2003-02-13 23:34

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The first request is reasonable.

The second is not the natural meaning of append(). In python, multiple appends are handled with extend(). The array module already provides extend. So, for the example given above, the code is:

array('B', [97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102])

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