[Jython-users] Converting between a byte string and a text string?

[Dan S. <drs...@gm...>]

How does one, in Jython 2.5.2, convert from a byte string to a text
string, and vice versa?

I'd like to support Jython in my opensource python2x3 module, but
Jython's string handling seems different enough from that of other
Pythons that I'm not clear on how to do so.  I found an article saying
that if you do a binary read in Jython, you'll get a binary str that
just keeps the high bytes zeroed, but I didn't notice anything about
converting from one (always zero high bytes to nonzero high bytes, for
EG) to the other.

Python2x3's at http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/svn/python2x3/trunk - and
I'm including a copy at the bottom of this message.

TIA!

#!/usr/bin/python

'''Provides code and data to facilitate writing python code that runs
on 2.x and 3.x, including pypy'''

# I'm afraid pylint won't like this one...

import sys
import platform

def python_major(result = int(platform.python_version_tuple()[0])):
        '''Return an integer corresponding to the major version # of
the python interpreter we're running on'''
        return result

if python_major() == 2:
        empty_bytes = ''
        null_byte = '\0'
        bytes_type = str
        def intlist_to_binary(intlist):
                '''Convert a list of integers to a binary string type'''
                return ''.join(chr(byte) for byte in intlist)
        def string_to_binary(string):
                '''Convert a text string to a binary string type'''
                return string
        def binary_to_intlist(binary):
                '''Convert a binary string to a list of integers'''
                return [ ord(character) for character in binary ]
        def binary_to_string(binary):
                '''Convert a binary string to a text string'''
                return binary
elif python_major() == 3:
        empty_bytes = ''.encode('utf-8')
        null_byte = bytes([ 0 ])
        bytes_type = bytes
        def intlist_to_binary(intlist):
                '''Convert a list of integers to a binary string type'''
                return bytes(intlist)
        def string_to_binary(string):
                '''Convert a text string (or binary string type) to a
binary string type'''
                if isinstance(string, str):
                        return string.encode('latin-1')
                else:
                        return string
        def binary_to_intlist(binary):
                '''Convert a binary string to a list of integers'''
                return binary
        def binary_to_string(binary):
                '''Convert a binary string to a text string'''
                return binary.decode('latin-1')
else:
        sys.stderr.write('%s: Python < 2 or > 3 not (yet) supported\n'
% sys.argv[0])
        sys.exit(1)