[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] Bytes<->vector procedures

[Andre van Tonder]

---
This message is a formal comment which was submitted to formal-comment at r6rs.org, following the requirements described at: http://www.r6rs.org/process.html
---
Name        : Andre van Tonder
Email       : andre at het.brown.edu
Type        : enhancement
Priority    : minor
Component   : bytes objects
Version     : 5.91
Pages       : 62-63
Dependencies: None

Summary:
--------

Bytes<->vector procedures are requested.

Discussion:
-----------

Currently ...-list->bytes and bytes->...list procedures are supplied to convert 
bytes vectors to lists of numbers and back.  However, where one has 
the choice, programming with lists of numbers tend to be less efficient 
than programming with vectors of numbers.

It may be useful to supply ...-vector->bytes and ...-bytes->vector procedures in 
addition to, or maybe preferably instead of, the list-based procedures. 
Since these can be implemented extremely efficiently, it seems a pity not
to provide them.