Data is often copied between BitStrings when a reference would suffice.

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Many operations that return a new BitString don't alter the underlying data
in any way, often just needing a slice of it. Currently the data is always
copied, which could be rather expensive in some cases.

Suggestion is to improve memory and computational efficiency by allowing a
BitString's internal byte data store to reference another BitString's data
rather than taking a copy.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by python.bitstring@googlemail.com on 17 Jan 2009 at 10:54

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Now that we have the Bits class, I think that in the interests of sane garbage
collection this enhancement should be re-written to just say that copies of Bits
objects shouldn't make unneccesary copies.

>>> a = Bits('0xff')
>>> b = Bits(a)
>>> c = a[:]
>>> d = copy.copy(a)

>>> a._datastore is b._datastore
True
>>> a._datastore is c._datastore
True
>>> a._datastore is d._datastore
True

Original comment by python.bitstring@googlemail.com on 20 Mar 2010 at 8:50

• Added labels: Milestone-2.0, Priority-High
• Removed labels: Priority-Low

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by dr.scott...@gmail.com on 23 May 2010 at 11:00

• Added labels: Milestone-2.1
• Removed labels: Milestone-2.0

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Done in rev 795.

Original comment by dr.scott...@gmail.com on 30 Sep 2010 at 2:31

• Changed state: Verified