'\378' becomes a two character string. The first character is '\37' and the second character is '8'.
>>> str = '\378' >>> str[0] '\x1f' >>> str[1] '8' >>> On 23 Dec 2004 20:53:13 -0800, PD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > > I am new to python, but i am quite curious about the following. > > suppose you had > > print '\378' > > which should not work because \377 is the max. then it displays two > characters (an 8 and a heart in my case...). What else does'nt quite > make sense is that if this is an octal why is an 8 accepted? > > for instance is 378 really 11, 111, 1000 which is then the two > characters: <00000001>,<1111000>. And why is this accepted? > > I apologize if this has been discussed or if it is obvious. I would > appreciate it if someone could clear me up. > > Yours, > PD > > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
