On Mon, 2 May 2022 at 14:49, Simon de Vlieger <c...@supakeen.com> wrote:
>
> Hey there,
>
> The `int()` function allows to specify a base to convert from, for example:
>
> >>> int("foo", 26)
> 10788
>
> Which is documented as:
>
> > The base defaults to 10. Valid bases are 0 and 2-36.
>
> For other common bases functions exist in the base64 module in stdlib.
>
> I often need other bases, or bases with custom alphabets. Doing so involves
> a bit of code every time that I think could be generalized so I'd like to
> propose
> an `int.to_base()`, and `int.from_base`. These would not supercede or replace
> any
> current possibilities but extend and simplify current possibilities.
>
> The signature(s) I had in mind for now are akin to:
>
> > int.from_base(x, alphabet, padding_character)
>
> and
>
> > int.to_base(alphabet, padding_character)
>
> Has any discussion on this been had previously (I searched around a bit), and
> if
> not would this make a decent PEP?
>
Let's not go as far as a PEP yet, and figure out a couple of things:
1) What's it like using existing tools?
2) How common is it to need something that's really clunky with existing tools?
The "alternate alphabet" case can be done by base converting and then
replacing on the string. It's not the smoothest, so that counts a bit
of clunkiness; but it's also not all THAT common (I can recall doing
it for SteamGuard 2FA codes, which are base 26 but avoid confusable
digit/letter pairs, and that's about it).
When you say "other bases", do you mean beyond base 36? Do you have
use-cases for anything >36 that isn't 64, 85, or 256? If so, how do
you currently do this?
The CPython integer type is implemented in C for performance. If
that's not a consideration, maybe this would be better done in the
base64 module (which is where base 85 also lives), as a general tool
for arbitrary ASCIIfication.
Can you link to your codebase where you 'often' do these kinds of
conversions? Is it in a performance-critical area?
ChrisA
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