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Diffstat (limited to 'Doc/library/struct.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Doc/library/struct.rst | 16 |
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 8 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/library/struct.rst b/Doc/library/struct.rst index b5fd43278f..0b8052c40d 100644 --- a/Doc/library/struct.rst +++ b/Doc/library/struct.rst @@ -263,14 +263,14 @@ specified number of bytes. As a special case, ``'0s'`` means a single, empty string (while ``'0c'`` means 0 characters). The ``'p'`` format character encodes a "Pascal string", meaning a short -variable-length string stored in a fixed number of bytes. The count is the total -number of bytes stored. The first byte stored is the length of the string, or -255, whichever is smaller. The bytes of the string follow. If the string -passed in to :func:`pack` is too long (longer than the count minus 1), only the -leading count-1 bytes of the string are stored. If the string is shorter than -count-1, it is padded with null bytes so that exactly count bytes in all are -used. Note that for :func:`unpack`, the ``'p'`` format character consumes count -bytes, but that the string returned can never contain more than 255 characters. +variable-length string stored in a *fixed number of bytes*, given by the count. +The first byte stored is the length of the string, or 255, whichever is smaller. +The bytes of the string follow. If the string passed in to :func:`pack` is too +long (longer than the count minus 1), only the leading ``count-1`` bytes of the +string are stored. If the string is shorter than ``count-1``, it is padded with +null bytes so that exactly count bytes in all are used. Note that for +:func:`unpack`, the ``'p'`` format character consumes count bytes, but that the +string returned can never contain more than 255 characters. For the ``'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 |