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Diffstat (limited to 'Doc/library/functions.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Doc/library/functions.rst | 27 |
1 files changed, 20 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/library/functions.rst b/Doc/library/functions.rst index 63f2c33e7d..d554a08777 100644 --- a/Doc/library/functions.rst +++ b/Doc/library/functions.rst @@ -118,18 +118,19 @@ available. They are listed here in alphabetical order. .. 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 @@ available. They are listed here in alphabetical order. * 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 |