On 10/29/06, "Martin v. Löwis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Travis E. Oliphant schrieb: > > Remember the context that the data-format object is presented in. Two > > packages need to share a chunk of memory (the package authors do not > > know each other and only have and Python as a common reference). They > > both want to describe that the memory they are sharing has some > > underlying binary structure. > > Can you please give an example of such two packages, and an application > that needs them share data?
Here's an example. PIL handles images (in various formats) in memory, as blocks of binary image data. NumPy provides methods for manipulating in-memory blocks of data. Now, if I want to use NumPy to manipulate that data in place (for example, to cap the red component at 128, and equalise the range of the green component) my code needs to know the format of the memory block that PIL exposes. I am assuming that in-place manipulation is better, because there is no need for repeated copies of the data to be made (this would be true for large images). If PIL could expose a descriptor for its data structure, NumPy code could manipulate it in place without fear of corrupting it. Of course, this can be done by the end user reading the PIL documentation and transcribing the documented format into the NumPy code. But I would argue that it's better if the PIL block is self-describing in a way that avoids the need for a manual transcription of the format. To do this *without* needing the PIL and NumPy developers to co-operate needs an independent standard, which is what I assume this PEP is intended to provide. Paul. _______________________________________________ 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
