Patch by Greg Stein to document the 'P' flag.

This commit is contained in:
Guido van Rossum 1998-09-21 14:44:34 +00:00
parent 10a7985565
commit 6ac06b39b3
1 changed files with 17 additions and 0 deletions

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@ -57,6 +57,7 @@ and Python values should be obvious given their types:
\lineiii{d}{double}{float}
\lineiii{s}{char[]}{string}
\lineiii{p}{char[]}{string}
\lineiii{P}{void *}{integer}
\end{tableiii}
A format character may be preceded by an integral repeat count; e.g.\
@ -85,6 +86,15 @@ that exactly enough bytes are used to satisfy the count.
For the \character{I} and \character{L} format characters, the return
value is a Python long integer.
For the \character{P} format character, the return value is a Python
integer or long integer, depending on the size needed to hold a
pointer when it has been cast to an integer type. A NULL pointer will
always be returned as the Python integer 0. When packing pointer-sized
values, Python integer or long integer objects may be used. For
example, the Alpha and Merced processors use 64-bit pointer values,
meaning a Python long integer will be used to hold the pointer; other
platforms use 32-bit pointers and will use a Python integer.
By default, C numbers are represented in the machine's native format
and byte order, and properly aligned by skipping pad bytes if
necessary (according to the rules used by the C compiler).
@ -126,6 +136,13 @@ There is no way to indicate non-native byte order (i.e. force
byte-swapping); use the appropriate choice of \character{<} or
\character{>}.
The \character{P} format character is only available for the native
byte ordering (selected as the default or with the \character{@} byte
order character). The byte order character \character{=} chooses to
use little- or big-endian ordering based on the host system. The
struct module does not interpret this as native ordering, so the
\character{P} format is not available.
Examples (all using native byte order, size and alignment, on a
big-endian machine):