Bengt Richter wrote: > On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 23:33:15 +0100, Thomas Wouters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> note what base64 really is for. It's essence is to create a _character_ > sequence > which can succeed in being encoded as ascii. The concept of base64 going > str->str > is really a mental shortcut for s_str.decode('base64').encode('ascii'), where > 3 octets are decoded as code for 4 characters modulo padding logic. Wouldn't it be... obj.encode('base64').encode('ascii') This would probably also work... obj.encode('base64').decode('ascii') -> ascii alphabet in unicode Where the underlying sequence might be ... obj -> bytes -> bytes:base64 -> base64 ascii character set The point is to have the data in a safe to transmit form that can survive being encoded and decoded into different forms along the transmission path and still be restored at the final destination. base64 ascii character set -> bytes:base64 -> original bytes -> obj * a related note, derived from this and your other post in this thread. If the str type constructor had an encode argument like the unicode type does, along with a str.encoded_with attribute. Then it might be possible to depreciate the .decode() and .encode() methods and remove them form P3k entirely or use them as data coders/decoders instead of char type encoders. It could also create a clear separation between character encodings and data coding. The following should give an exception. str(str, 'rot13')) Rot13 isn't a character encoding, but a data coding method. data_str.encode('rot13') # could be ok But this wouldn't... new_str = data_str.encode('latin_1') # could cause an exception We'd have to use... new_str = str(data_str, 'latin_1') # New string sub type... Cheers, Ronald Adam _______________________________________________ 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