mark dickinson vqpxmqtcgmailcom repeat question came decimalunicode thread little ago think needs answer im reposting thread couldnt find previous discussion apologies im rehashing old issues currently int float accept bytes instances example intbytes49 50 51 123 40381 refs intb123 123 40381 refs philosophically seems wrong clear bytes49 50 51 represent integer even integer represent intended bytes sequence thought ascii string really explicitly decoded first intb123decodeascii 123 hand theres least sense bytes already acts sort poormans string witness byteslower friends maybe practicality beats purity people think changing int float constructors dont accept bytes experimented removing intbytes intbytearray support longobjectcs long_new pynumber_long abstractc see much breakage occurred results 11 tests failed test_email test_httplib test_io test_mimetools test_pickle test_pickletools test_random test_smtplib test_sqlite test_tarfile test_uu randompy needed patching get testsuite run first place none breakage looks particularly serious difficult fix havent tried removing floatbytes support yet see also httpbugspythonorgissue2483 mark thu 07 aug 2008 112012 0400 python3000 int float accept bytes