Guido van Rossum <guido@digicool.com>: > > But the \r\n thingie can be pushed into the extended header > > instead. Here's an idea for "the new" magic number, assuming it > > must remain 4 bytes: > > > > byte 0: \217 will never change > > byte 1: 'P' will never change > > byte 2: high-order byte of version number > > byte 3: low-order byte of version number > > > > "Version number" is an unsigned 16-bit int, starting at 0 and > > incremented by 1 from time to time. 64K changes may even be > > enough to get us to Python 3000 <wink>. A separate text file > > should record the history of version number changes, associating > > each with the date, release and reason for change (the CVS log for > > import.c used to be good about recording the reason, but not > > anymore). > > > > Then we can keep a 4-byte magic number, Eric can have his > > invariant two-byte tag at the start, and it's still possible to > > compare "version numbers" easily for more than just equality (read > > the magic number as a "network standard" unsigned int, and it's a > > total ordering with earlier versions comparing less than later > > ones). The other nifty PNG sanity-checking tricks can also move > > into the extended header. > > +1 from me. I'm +0 on adding more magic to the marshalled code. Likewise from me -- that is, +1 on Tim's proposed format and +0 on stuff like hashes and embedded source pathnames and stuff. As Tim observed earlier, I just want to see some progress made; I'm not picky about the low-level details on this one, though I'll be happy with the invariant tag and the PNG-style sanity check. -- <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a> "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." -- Barry Goldwater (actually written by Karl Hess)
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