It never occured to me that str() would behave like int() for this case. It makes complete sense to me that a factory for numbers would ask about the base of the number. What would the base of a string be, except in a few limited cases? str([1, 2], 4) doesn't make any sense. You might argue that I wasn't all that bright as a beginner <0.5 wink>.
I think it shouldn't be changed, because the second positional argument only works for a small number of the panoply types that can be passed to str(). It would be fine to have a function for this hiding somewhere, perhaps even as a method on numbers, but str() is too generic. Jeremy On 1/16/06, Alex Martelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Is it finally time in Python 2.5 to allow the "obvious" use of, say, > str(5,2) to give '101', just the converse of the way int('101',1) > gives 5? I'm not sure why str has never allowed this obvious use -- > any bright beginner assumes it's there and it's awkward to explain > why it's not!-). I'll be happy to propose a patch if the BDFL > blesses this, but I don't even think it's worth a PEP... it's an > inexplicable though long-standing omission (given the argumentative > nature of this crowd I know I'll get pushback, but I still hope the > BDFL can Pronounce about it anyway;-). > > > Alex > > _______________________________________________ > Python-Dev mailing list > Python-Dev@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev > Unsubscribe: > http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/jeremy%40alum.mit.edu > _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com