Standard type codes for array.array, same as struct

[cmcqueen1975]

BPO	9066
Nosy	@pfalcon, @mdickinson, @serhiy-storchaka, @MojoVampire

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2010-06-24.04:58:28.910>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library']
title = 'Standard type codes for array.array, same as struct'
updated_at = <Date 2014-04-13.09:07:38.733>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/cmcqueen1975'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2014-04-13.09:07:38.733>
actor = 'serhiy.storchaka'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2010-06-24.04:58:28.910>
creator = 'cmcqueen1975'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 9066
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['108501', '108510', '215758', '215760']
nosy_count = 5.0
nosy_names = ['pfalcon', 'mark.dickinson', 'cmcqueen1975', 'serhiy.storchaka', 'josh.r']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = 'needs patch'
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue9066'
versions = ['Python 3.5']

[cmcqueen1975]

The type codes for array.array are platform-dependent.

The type codes are similar to those for the struct module. It would be helpful for array.array to adopt the struct module's "=" format specifier prefix, to specify "standard" sizes. E.g.

    array_object = array.array("=L")  # 4-byte elements on all platforms

[mdickinson]

I agree that it might be useful to have some way of specifying fixed-width integers. It's not clear to me that importing specifier prefixes from the struct module is the best way to go about this, though.

[pfalcon]

It's not clear to me that importing specifier prefixes from the struct module is the best way to go about this, though.

What are other alternatives then? Using struct's syntax has obvious benefit of being consistent and not confusing people any further.

[pfalcon]

See also http://bugs.python.org/issue17345