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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> <meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark"> <title>PEP 332 – Byte vectors and String/Unicode Unification | peps.python.org</title> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="../_static/py.png"> <link rel="canonical" href="https://peps.python.org/pep-0332/"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/style.css" type="text/css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/mq.css" type="text/css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" media="(prefers-color-scheme: light)" id="pyg-light"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pygments_dark.css" type="text/css" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" id="pyg-dark"> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Latest PEPs" href="https://peps.python.org/peps.rss"> <meta property="og:title" content='PEP 332 – Byte vectors and String/Unicode Unification | peps.python.org'> <meta 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href="#svg-sun-half"></use></svg> <svg aria-hidden="true" class="colour-scheme-icon-when-dark"><use href="#svg-moon"></use></svg> <svg aria-hidden="true" class="colour-scheme-icon-when-light"><use href="#svg-sun"></use></svg> <span class="visually-hidden">Toggle light / dark / auto colour theme</span> </button> </header> <article> <section id="pep-content"> <h1 class="page-title">PEP 332 – Byte vectors and String/Unicode Unification</h1> <dl class="rfc2822 field-list simple"> <dt class="field-odd">Author<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-odd">Skip Montanaro <skip at pobox.com></dd> <dt class="field-even">Status<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-even"><abbr title="Formally declined and will not be accepted">Rejected</abbr></dd> <dt class="field-odd">Type<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-odd"><abbr title="Normative PEP with a new feature for Python, implementation change for CPython or interoperability standard for the ecosystem">Standards Track</abbr></dd> <dt class="field-even">Created<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-even">11-Aug-2004</dd> <dt class="field-odd">Python-Version<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-odd">2.5</dd> <dt class="field-even">Post-History<span class="colon">:</span></dt> <dd class="field-even"><p></p></dd> </dl> <hr class="docutils" /> <section id="contents"> <details><summary>Table of Contents</summary><ul class="simple"> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#abstract">Abstract</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#rejection-notice">Rejection Notice</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#rationale">Rationale</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#proposed-implementation">Proposed Implementation</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#bytes-object-api">Bytes Object API</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#issues">Issues</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#copyright">Copyright</a></li> </ul> </details></section> <section id="abstract"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#abstract" role="doc-backlink">Abstract</a></h2> <p>This PEP outlines the introduction of a raw <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">bytes</span></code> sequence object and the unification of the current <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">str</span></code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">unicode</span></code> objects.</p> </section> <section id="rejection-notice"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#rejection-notice" role="doc-backlink">Rejection Notice</a></h2> <p>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 <a class="reference external" href="https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-February/060930.html">https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-February/060930.html</a>.</p> </section> <section id="rationale"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#rationale" role="doc-backlink">Rationale</a></h2> <p>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.</p> </section> <section id="proposed-implementation"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#proposed-implementation" role="doc-backlink">Proposed Implementation</a></h2> <p>The number in parentheses indicates the Python version in which the feature will be introduced.</p> <ul class="simple"> <li>Add a <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">bytes</span></code> builtin which is just a synonym for <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">str</span></code>. (2.5)</li> <li>Add a <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">b"..."</span></code> 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)</li> <li>Warn about the use of variables named “bytes”. (2.5 or 2.6)</li> <li>Introduce a <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">bytes</span></code> builtin which refers to a sequence distinct from the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">str</span></code> type. (2.6)</li> <li>Make <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">str</span></code> a synonym for <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">unicode</span></code>. (3.0)</li> </ul> </section> <section id="bytes-object-api"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#bytes-object-api" role="doc-backlink">Bytes Object API</a></h2> <p>TBD.</p> </section> <section id="issues"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#issues" role="doc-backlink">Issues</a></h2> <ul class="simple"> <li>Can this be accomplished before Python 3.0?</li> <li>Should <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">bytes</span></code> objects be mutable or immutable? (Guido seems to like them to be mutable.)</li> </ul> </section> <section id="copyright"> <h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#copyright" role="doc-backlink">Copyright</a></h2> <p>This document has been placed in the public domain.</p> </section> </section> <hr class="docutils" /> <p>Source: <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0332.rst">https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0332.rst</a></p> <p>Last modified: <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/python/peps/commits/main/peps/pep-0332.rst">2023-09-09 17:39:29 GMT</a></p> </article> <nav id="pep-sidebar"> <h2>Contents</h2> <ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#abstract">Abstract</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#rejection-notice">Rejection Notice</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#rationale">Rationale</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#proposed-implementation">Proposed Implementation</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#bytes-object-api">Bytes Object API</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#issues">Issues</a></li> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#copyright">Copyright</a></li> </ul> <br> <a id="source" href="https://github.com/python/peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0332.rst">Page Source (GitHub)</a> </nav> </section> <script src="../_static/colour_scheme.js"></script> <script src="../_static/wrap_tables.js"></script> <script src="../_static/sticky_banner.js"></script> </body> </html>