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I'm curious to know if anyone would object to optional
minimum or maximum or both arguments, or even some
additional methods that would result in a potentially
constrained string output from long.tostring()?

If I were to split the functionality into three methods,
they would be as follows...

def atleast(long, atl):
    if atl < 0:
        raise TypeError("atleast requires a positive integer
for a minimum length")
    a = long.tostring()
    la = len(a)
    return (atl-la)*'\o' + a

def atmost(long, atm):
    if atm < 0:
        raise TypeError("atleast requires a positive integer
for a minimum length")
    a = long.tostring()
    la = len(a)
    return a[:atm]

def constrained(long, atl, atm):
    if atm < atl:
        raise TypeError("constrained requires that the
maximum length be larger than the minimum length")
    if atl < 0 or atm < 0:
        raise TypeError("constrained requires that both
arguments are positive")
    a = long.tostring()
    la = len(a)
    return ((atl-la)*'\o' + a)[:atm]


I personally would find use for the above, would anyone else
have use for it?