The Effects of the 'b' Character in Python
In Python, the 'b' character can be prefixed to a string literal to create a bytes object. This serves to make a distinction between string and byte data types, as Python 3.x clearly differentiates between the two:
Usage of 'b' Prefix
Utilize 'str' to represent text, and 'bytes' when representing binary data. For instance:
# Represent text print('Hello world') # Represent binary data (NaN in big-endian) NaN = struct.unpack('>d', b'\xff\xf8\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00')[0]
Mixability of Types
Avoid mingling str and bytes types directly. For example:
# Error in Python 3.x b'\xEF\xBB\xBF' + 'Text with a UTF-8 BOM'
Behavior in Python 2.x
In Python 2.x versions, the 'b' prefix has no effect but serves as an indicator not to convert the string to Unicode in Python 3.x. This is useful for distinguishing binary strings from text strings during migration.
Other String Literals
Besides 'b', Python also supports:
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