Merging the py3k-pep3137 branch back into the py3k branch.
No detailed change log; just check out the change log for the py3k-pep3137
branch. The most obvious changes:
- str8 renamed to bytes (PyString at the C level);
- bytes renamed to buffer (PyBytes at the C level);
- PyString and PyUnicode are no longer compatible.
I.e. we now have an immutable bytes type and a mutable bytes type.
The behavior of PyString was modified quite a bit, to make it more
bytes-like. Some changes are still on the to-do list.
diff --git a/Doc/library/array.rst b/Doc/library/array.rst
index c2b7a44..4747b63 100644
--- a/Doc/library/array.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/array.rst
@@ -56,8 +56,9 @@
.. function:: array(typecode[, initializer])
Return a new array whose items are restricted by *typecode*, and initialized
- from the optional *initializer* value, which must be a list, string, or iterable
- over elements of the appropriate type.
+ from the optional *initializer* value, which must be a list, object
+ supporting the buffer interface, or iterable over elements of the
+ appropriate type.
If given a list or string, the initializer is passed to the new array's
:meth:`fromlist`, :meth:`fromstring`, or :meth:`fromunicode` method (see below)
@@ -69,6 +70,10 @@
Obsolete alias for :func:`array`.
+.. data:: typecodes
+
+ A string with all available type codes.
+
Array objects support the ordinary sequence operations of indexing, slicing,
concatenation, and multiplication. When using slice assignment, the assigned
value must be an array object with the same type code; in all other cases,
diff --git a/Doc/library/exceptions.rst b/Doc/library/exceptions.rst
index 34fb429..9453b7a 100644
--- a/Doc/library/exceptions.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/exceptions.rst
@@ -405,7 +405,11 @@
Base class for warnings related to Unicode.
-The class hierarchy for built-in exceptions is:
+.. exception:: BytesWarning
+ Base class for warnings related to :class:`bytes` and :class:`buffer`.
+
+
+The class hierarchy for built-in exceptions is:
.. literalinclude:: ../../Lib/test/exception_hierarchy.txt
diff --git a/Doc/library/functions.rst b/Doc/library/functions.rst
index 63f2c33..d554a08 100644
--- a/Doc/library/functions.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/functions.rst
@@ -118,18 +118,19 @@
.. index:: pair: Boolean; type
-.. function:: bytes([arg[, encoding[, errors]]])
+.. function:: buffer([arg[, encoding[, errors]]])
- Return a new array of bytes. The :class:`bytes` type is a mutable sequence
+ Return a new array of bytes. The :class:`buffer` type is an immutable sequence
of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256. It has most of the usual methods of
- mutable sequences, described in :ref:`typesseq-mutable`, as well as a few
- methods borrowed from strings, described in :ref:`bytes-methods`.
+ mutable sequences, described in :ref:`typesseq-mutable`, as well as most methods
+ that the :class:`str` type has, see :ref:`bytes-methods`.
The optional *arg* parameter can be used to initialize the array in a few
different ways:
* If it is a *string*, you must also give the *encoding* (and optionally,
- *errors*) parameters; :func:`bytes` then acts like :meth:`str.encode`.
+ *errors*) parameters; :func:`buffer` then converts the Unicode string to
+ bytes using :meth:`str.encode`.
* If it is an *integer*, the array will have that size and will be
initialized with null bytes.
@@ -137,12 +138,24 @@
* If it is an object conforming to the *buffer* interface, a read-only buffer
of the object will be used to initialize the bytes array.
- * If it is an *iterable*, it must be an iterable of integers in the range 0
- <= x < 256, which are used as the initial contents of the array.
+ * If it is an *iterable*, it must be an iterable of integers in the range
+ ``0 <= x < 256``, which are used as the initial contents of the array.
Without an argument, an array of size 0 is created.
+.. function:: bytes([arg[, encoding[, errors]]])
+
+ Return a new "bytes" object, which is an immutable sequence of integers in
+ the range ``0 <= x < 256``. :class:`bytes` is an immutable version of
+ :class:`buffer` -- it has the same non-mutating methods and the same indexing
+ and slicing behavior.
+
+ Accordingly, constructor arguments are interpreted as for :func:`buffer`.
+
+ Bytes objects can also be created with literals, see :ref:`strings`.
+
+
.. function:: chr(i)
Return the string of one character whose Unicode codepoint is the integer
diff --git a/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst b/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst
index f557b1f..9073bca 100644
--- a/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst
@@ -1313,9 +1313,11 @@
Bytes and buffer objects, being "strings of bytes", have all methods found on
strings, with the exception of :func:`encode`, :func:`format` and
-:func:`isidentifier`, which do not make sense with these types. Wherever one of
-these methods needs to interpret the bytes as characters (e.g. the :func:`is...`
-methods), the ASCII character set is assumed.
+:func:`isidentifier`, which do not make sense with these types. For converting
+the objects to strings, they have a :func:`decode` method.
+
+Wherever one of these methods needs to interpret the bytes as characters
+(e.g. the :func:`is...` methods), the ASCII character set is assumed.
.. note::
diff --git a/Doc/library/warnings.rst b/Doc/library/warnings.rst
index 684209f..9a10385 100644
--- a/Doc/library/warnings.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/warnings.rst
@@ -80,6 +80,10 @@
| :exc:`UnicodeWarning` | Base category for warnings related to |
| | Unicode. |
+----------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
+| :exc:`BytesWarning` | Base category for warnings related to |
+| | :class:`bytes` and :class:`buffer`. |
++----------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
+
While these are technically built-in exceptions, they are documented here,
because conceptually they belong to the warnings mechanism.