Logged In: YES 
user_id=43755

that would turn my example into PyArg_ParseTuple (tuple,
"Oi", _, &my_int);

I don't particularly care. I thought it was a good
suggestion. To me _ looks like a blank. I wouldn't really
want to use it in a format string for something besides an
any/none scenario. Your reasoning about preserving format
characters seems really weak.

You've never had a tuple where you didn't care about the
value of each element?

Somewhat separate topic. Could you say "PyArg_ParseTuple
(tuple, "Oi", NULL, &my_int);" ? I guess that would be a
less elegant way of doing what I intended.