PEP: 332
Title: Byte vectors and String/Unicode Unification
Version: $Revision$
Last-Modified: $Date$
Author: Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com>
Status: Rejected
Type: Standards Track
Content-Type: text/x-rst
Created: 11-Aug-2004
Python-Version: 2.5
Post-History:


Abstract
========

This PEP outlines the introduction of a raw ``bytes`` sequence object
and the unification of the current ``str`` and ``unicode`` objects.


Rejection Notice
================

This PEP is rejected in this form.  The author has expressed lack of
time to continue to shepherd it, and discussion on python-dev has
moved to a slightly different proposal which will (eventually) be
written up as a new PEP.  See the thread starting at
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-February/060930.html.


Rationale
=========

Python's current string objects are overloaded.  They serve both to
hold ASCII and non-ASCII character data and to also hold sequences of
raw bytes which have no reasonable interpretation as displayable
character sequences.  This overlap hasn't been a big problem in the
past, but as Python moves closer to requiring source code to be
properly encoded, the use of strings to represent raw byte sequences
will be more problematic.  In addition, as Python's Unicode support
has improved, it's easier to consider strings as ASCII-encoded Unicode
objects.


Proposed Implementation
=======================

The number in parentheses indicates the Python version in which the
feature will be introduced.

- Add a ``bytes`` builtin which is just a synonym for ``str``. (2.5)

- Add a ``b"..."`` string literal which is equivalent to raw string
  literals, with the exception that values which conflict with the
  source encoding of the containing file not generate warnings. (2.5)

- Warn about the use of variables named "bytes". (2.5 or 2.6)

- Introduce a ``bytes`` builtin which refers to a sequence distinct
  from the ``str`` type. (2.6)

- Make ``str`` a synonym for ``unicode``. (3.0)


Bytes Object API
================

TBD.


Issues
======

- Can this be accomplished before Python 3.0?

- Should ``bytes`` objects be mutable or immutable?  (Guido seems to
  like them to be mutable.)


Copyright
=========

This document has been placed in the public domain.



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