[pycrypto] Once again: Python3 with PyCrypto

[Thorsten Behrens]

Still crashing, just not on importing winrandom any more. I found the 
typo there. More errors remain, clearly.

I have a question regarding the str/bytes situation in Python 3. Take 
this example from Counter.py:

     if sys.version_info[0] is 2:
         if little_endian:
             return _counter._newLE(str(prefix), str(suffix), initval, 
allow_wraparound=allow_wraparound, disable_shortcut=disable_shortcut)
         else:
             return _counter._newBE(str(prefix), str(suffix), initval, 
allow_wraparound=allow_wraparound, disable_shortcut=disable_shortcut)
     else:
         if little_endian:
             return _counter._newLE(prefix.encode(), suffix.encode(), 
initval.encode(), allow_wraparound=allow_wraparound, 
disable_shortcut=disable_shortcut)
         else:
             return _counter._newBE(prefix.encode(), suffix.encode(), 
initval.encode(), allow_wraparound=allow_wraparound, 
disable_shortcut=disable_shortcut)

Not having had that much exposure to this code, my question is: Would it 
be safe to just use .encode() throughout, without the check for Python 
version? From all I can tell, it'll work as desired - but there may be a 
corner case I haven't considered. Essentially, can I collapse the above 
again to:

     if little_endian:
         return _counter._newLE(prefix.encode(), suffix.encode(), 
initval.encode(), allow_wraparound=allow_wraparound, 
disable_shortcut=disable_shortcut)
     else:
         return _counter._newBE(prefix.encode(), suffix.encode(), 
initval.encode(), allow_wraparound=allow_wraparound, 
disable_shortcut=disable_shortcut)

for all versions of Python, 2.x and 3.x.

Dwayne, can you shed some light?

Thorsten