Joe Strout wrote: > On Nov 21, 2008, at 2:08 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > >> a, b = line.split() > > Note that in a case like this, you may want to consider using partition > instead of split: > > a, sep, b = line.partition(' ') > > This way, if there happens to be more than one space (for example, > because the Unicode character you're mapping to happens to be a space), > it'll still work. It also better encodes the intention, which is to > split only on the first space in the line, rather than on every space. > > (It so happens I ran into exactly this issue yesterday, though my > delimiter was a colon.) > Joe:
In the special case of the None first argument (the default for the str.split() method) runs of whitespace *are* treated as single delimiters. So line.split() is not the same as line.split(' '). regards Steve -- Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list