[Python-Dev] Why does read() return bytes instead of bytearray?
Hi, Can someone please explain why read() should return an immutable bytes type instead of a mutable bytearray? It's not like read() from a file and use buffer as a key in a dict is common. Certainly read() from file or stream, modify, write is very common. I don't understand why the common case pays the price in performance and simplicity. It seemed to me that the immutable bytes was described as being useful in niche situations, but it actually seems to have been favored over bytearray in Python 3. Was there was a good reason for this decision? Or was this just an artifact in the change to two bytes types? The reason I ask is I have a server application that is mostly stream reading/writing on the hot path and in Python 2.5 the redundant copies add up to a significant overhead, (I estimate as much as 25% from my measurements) I was looking at Python 3 as a way to solve that problem, but unfortunately it doesn't look like it will help. Thanks, -Dan ___ 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
[Python-Dev] Why does read() return bytes instead of bytearray?
>No, the read() method did not change from the 2.x series. It returns a new >object on each call. I think you misunderstand me, but the readinto() method looks like a perfectly reasonable solution, I didn't realize it existed, as it's not in the library reference on file objects. Thanks for enlightening me, I feel a little stupid now :) Python 3, lookout, here I come! -Dan ___ 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
[Python-Dev] Thank you all
I was just browsing what's new in Python 2.5 at http://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/ As I was reading I found myself thinking how almost every improvement made a programming task I commonly bump into a little easier. Take the with statement, or the new partition method for strings, or the defaultdict (which I think was previously available, but I only now realized what it does), or the unified try/except/finally, or the conditional expression, etc Then I remembered my reaction was much like that when python 2.4 was released, and before that when Python 2.3 was released. Every time a new version of python rolls around, my life gets a little easier. I just want to say thank you, very much, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone here who chooses to spend some of their free time working on improving Python. Whether it be fixing bugs, writing documentation, optimizing things, or adding new/updating modules or features, I want you all to know I really appreciate your efforts. Your hard work has long ago made Python into my favourite programming language, and the gap only continues to grow. I think most people here and on comp.lang.python feel the same way. It's just too often that people (me) will find the 1% of things that aren't quite right and will focus on that, rather than look at the 99% of things that are done very well. So now, while I'm thinking about it, I want to take the opportunity to say thank you for the 99% of Python that all of you have done such a good job on. -Dan ___ 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
