#3613: add base64.encodebytes and decodebytes as the new spelling of encodestring and decodestring; deprecate the latter.

Author: birkenfeld

Doc/library/base64.rst

@@ -116,38 +116,44 @@ The modern interface provides:
    incorrectly padded or if there are non-alphabet characters present in the
    string.
 
-The legacy interface:
 
+The legacy interface:
 
 .. function:: decode(input, output)
 
-   Decode the contents of the *input* file and write the resulting binary data to
-   the *output* file. *input* and *output* must either be file objects or objects
-   that mimic the file object interface. *input* will be read until
-   ``input.read()`` returns an empty string.
+   Decode the contents of the binary *input* file and write the resulting binary
+   data to the *output* file. *input* and *output* must either be file objects
+   or objects that mimic the file object interface working with bytes
+   objects. *input* will be read until ``input.read()`` returns an empty string.
 
 
-.. function:: decodestring(s)
+.. function:: decodebytes(s)
+              decodestring(s)
 
-   Decode the string *s*, which must contain one or more lines of base64 encoded
-   data, and return a string containing the resulting binary data.
+   Decode the bytestring *s*, which must contain one or more lines of base64
+   encoded data, and return a bytestring containing the resulting binary data.
+   ``decodestring`` is a deprecated alias.
 
 
 .. function:: encode(input, output)
 
-   Encode the contents of the *input* file and write the resulting base64 encoded
-   data to the *output* file. *input* and *output* must either be file objects or
-   objects that mimic the file object interface. *input* will be read until
-   ``input.read()`` returns an empty string.  :func:`encode` returns the encoded
-   data plus a trailing newline character (``'\n'``).
+   Encode the contents of the binary *input* file and write the resulting base64
+   encoded data to the *output* file. *input* and *output* must either be file
+   objects or objects that mimic the file object interface working with bytes
+   objects. *input* will be read until ``input.read()`` returns an empty string.
+   :func:`encode` returns the encoded data plus a trailing newline character
+   (``b'\n'``).
+
 
+.. function:: encodebytes(s)
+              encodestring(s)
 
-.. function:: encodestring(s)
+   Encode the bytestring *s*, which can contain arbitrary binary data, and
+   return a bytestring containing one or more lines of base64-encoded data.
+   :func:`encodebytes` returns a string containing one or more lines of
+   base64-encoded data always including an extra trailing newline (``b'\n'``).
+   ``encodestring`` is a deprecated alias.
 
-   Encode the string *s*, which can contain arbitrary binary data, and return a
-   string containing one or more lines of base64-encoded data.
-   :func:`encodestring` returns a string containing one or more lines of
-   base64-encoded data always including an extra trailing newline (``'\n'``).
 
 An example usage of the module:
 

Lib/base64.py

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 
 __all__ = [
     # Legacy interface exports traditional RFC 1521 Base64 encodings
-    'encode', 'decode', 'encodestring', 'decodestring',
+    'encode', 'decode', 'encodebytes', 'decodebytes',
     # Generalized interface for other encodings
     'b64encode', 'b64decode', 'b32encode', 'b32decode',
     'b16encode', 'b16decode',
@@ -329,11 +329,9 @@ def decode(input, output):
         output.write(s)
 
 
-def encodestring(s):
-    """Encode a string into multiple lines of base-64 data.
-
-    Argument and return value are bytes.
-    """
+def encodebytes(s):
+    """Encode a bytestring into a bytestring containing multiple lines
+    of base-64 data."""
     if not isinstance(s, bytes_types):
         raise TypeError("expected bytes, not %s" % s.__class__.__name__)
     pieces = []
@@ -342,16 +340,26 @@ def encodestring(s):
         pieces.append(binascii.b2a_base64(chunk))
     return b"".join(pieces)
 
+def encodestring(s):
+    """Legacy alias of encodebytes()."""
+    import warnings
+    warnings.warn("encodestring() is a deprecated alias, use encodebytes()",
+                  DeprecationWarning, 2)
+    return encodebytes(s)
 
-def decodestring(s):
-    """Decode a string.
 
-    Argument and return value are bytes.
-    """
+def decodebytes(s):
+    """Decode a bytestring of base-64 data into a bytestring."""
     if not isinstance(s, bytes_types):
         raise TypeError("expected bytes, not %s" % s.__class__.__name__)
     return binascii.a2b_base64(s)
 
+def decodestring(s):
+    """Legacy alias of decodebytes()."""
+    import warnings
+    warnings.warn("decodestring() is a deprecated alias, use decodebytes()",
+                  DeprecationWarning, 2)
+    return decodebytes(s)
 
 
 # Usable as a script...

Lib/test/test_base64.py

@@ -6,35 +6,35 @@
 
 
 class LegacyBase64TestCase(unittest.TestCase):
-    def test_encodestring(self):
+    def test_encodebytes(self):
         eq = self.assertEqual
-        eq(base64.encodestring(b"www.python.org"), b"d3d3LnB5dGhvbi5vcmc=\n")
-        eq(base64.encodestring(b"a"), b"YQ==\n")
-        eq(base64.encodestring(b"ab"), b"YWI=\n")
-        eq(base64.encodestring(b"abc"), b"YWJj\n")
-        eq(base64.encodestring(b""), b"")
-        eq(base64.encodestring(b"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
+        eq(base64.encodebytes(b"www.python.org"), b"d3d3LnB5dGhvbi5vcmc=\n")
+        eq(base64.encodebytes(b"a"), b"YQ==\n")
+        eq(base64.encodebytes(b"ab"), b"YWI=\n")
+        eq(base64.encodebytes(b"abc"), b"YWJj\n")
+        eq(base64.encodebytes(b""), b"")
+        eq(base64.encodebytes(b"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
                                b"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
                                b"0123456789!@#0^&*();:<>,. []{}"),
            b"YWJjZGVmZ2hpamtsbW5vcHFyc3R1dnd4eXpBQkNE"
            b"RUZHSElKS0xNTk9QUVJTVFVWV1hZWjAxMjM0\nNT"
            b"Y3ODkhQCMwXiYqKCk7Ojw+LC4gW117fQ==\n")
-        self.assertRaises(TypeError, base64.encodestring, "")
+        self.assertRaises(TypeError, base64.encodebytes, "")
 
-    def test_decodestring(self):
+    def test_decodebytes(self):
         eq = self.assertEqual
-        eq(base64.decodestring(b"d3d3LnB5dGhvbi5vcmc=\n"), b"www.python.org")
-        eq(base64.decodestring(b"YQ==\n"), b"a")
-        eq(base64.decodestring(b"YWI=\n"), b"ab")
-        eq(base64.decodestring(b"YWJj\n"), b"abc")
-        eq(base64.decodestring(b"YWJjZGVmZ2hpamtsbW5vcHFyc3R1dnd4eXpBQkNE"
+        eq(base64.decodebytes(b"d3d3LnB5dGhvbi5vcmc=\n"), b"www.python.org")
+        eq(base64.decodebytes(b"YQ==\n"), b"a")
+        eq(base64.decodebytes(b"YWI=\n"), b"ab")
+        eq(base64.decodebytes(b"YWJj\n"), b"abc")
+        eq(base64.decodebytes(b"YWJjZGVmZ2hpamtsbW5vcHFyc3R1dnd4eXpBQkNE"
                                b"RUZHSElKS0xNTk9QUVJTVFVWV1hZWjAxMjM0\nNT"
                                b"Y3ODkhQCMwXiYqKCk7Ojw+LC4gW117fQ==\n"),
            b"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
            b"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
            b"0123456789!@#0^&*();:<>,. []{}")
-        eq(base64.decodestring(b''), b'')
-        self.assertRaises(TypeError, base64.decodestring, "")
+        eq(base64.decodebytes(b''), b'')
+        self.assertRaises(TypeError, base64.decodebytes, "")
 
     def test_encode(self):
         eq = self.assertEqual

Lib/test/test_xmlrpc.py

@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ def test_string(self):
 
     def test_decode(self):
         d = b'\x01\x02\x03abc123\xff\xfe'
-        de = base64.encodestring(d)
+        de = base64.encodebytes(d)
         t1 = xmlrpclib.Binary()
         t1.decode(de)
         self.assertEqual(str(t1), str(d, "latin-1"))

Lib/xmlrpc/client.py

@@ -419,11 +419,11 @@ def __ne__(self, other):
         return self.data != other
 
     def decode(self, data):
-        self.data = base64.decodestring(data)
+        self.data = base64.decodebytes(data)
 
     def encode(self, out):
         out.write("<value><base64>\n")
-        encoded = base64.encodestring(self.data)
+        encoded = base64.encodebytes(self.data)
         out.write(encoded.decode('ascii'))
         out.write('\n')
         out.write("</base64></value>\n")
@@ -1100,7 +1100,7 @@ def get_host_info(self, host):
         if auth:
             import base64
             auth = urllib.parse.unquote_to_bytes(auth)
-            auth = base64.encodestring(auth).decode("utf-8")
+            auth = base64.encodebytes(auth).decode("utf-8")
             auth = "".join(auth.split()) # get rid of whitespace
             extra_headers = [
                 ("Authorization", "Basic " + auth)

Misc/NEWS

@@ -21,6 +21,10 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #3613: base64.{encode,decode}string are now called
+  base64.{encode,decode}bytes which reflects what type they accept and return.
+  The old names are still there as deprecated aliases.
+
 - Issue #5767: Remove sgmlop support from xmlrpc.client.
 
 - Issue #6150: Fix test_unicode on wide-unicode builds.