Better yet: Provide type codes for the “new” C exact width integer types:
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/stdint.h.html (and any number of tother references) I've always thought is was unfortunate that Python inherited C's compiler-specific type definitions. But it's nice to be able to write platform-independent code that deals with binary data. numpy as provided these pretty much forever: https://numpy.org/devdocs/user/basics.types.html in addition to the dtype objects, numpy uses character typecodes, where you can specify the number of bytes of the type: e.g. "i4" is a 32 bit (four byte) signed integer, "u4" is a 32 bit unsigned integer. it seems the array module could adopt a similar system. Allow supplying an integer `itemsize` value as the `typecode` with a > positive value for unsigned or a negative value for signed. > this seem pretty "magic" -- why not simply extend the typecode system as above? > > Allow supplying a simple slice as the `typecode` defining the smallest > rage of values that an item should be able to represent. this is even more magic -- it's only practical to provide types that are a standard numbe rof bytes: 1,2,4,8 And this makes the goal of knowing exactly how many bytes your type is using even harder. > The array function object would also support indexing to produce a curried > `array` function with the given a slice as its first argument. > When either the signed or unsigned item type of a given size could > encompass the given range, then the unsigned type would be used. > even more magic, and more confusing -- why would you want this? i have to say, I've been staring at a a bit, and am still not quite sure what this is intended to do, and why? How does a slice object help here??? > > # Signed short items initialized with [1, 2, 3] > a = array.array(slice(-1, 200), Range(1, 4)) # or... > a = array.array[-1:200](Range(1, 4)) > > # Unsigned 4-byte items (int (I) or long (L) depending on platform) > a = array.array(slice(0, 0x90_00_00_00)) # or... > a = array.array[0:0x90_00_00_00]() # or… > a = array.array[0:0x70_00_00_00]() # Would fit into signed or unsigned. > -CHB
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