On Oct 22, 10:05 am, John Posner <jjpos...@optimum.net> wrote: > Carl Banks wrote: > > <snip> > > > s.split() and s.split(sep) do different things, and there is no string > > sep that can make s.split(sep) behave like s.split(). That's not > > unheard of but it does go against our typical expectations. It would > > have been a better library design if s.split() and s.split(sep) were > > different methods. > > It looks like they *were* different methods. The Oct 1996 edition of > "Programming Python" (O'Reilly & Assoc.), based on Python 1.3, describes > two separate functions in the "string" module in Chapter 16: > > string.split() > string.splitfields(delim)
That's interesting. If string.splitfields(delim) was equivalent to str.split(sep), it would have been useful to add the phrase "str.split(sep) is equivalent to the old string.splitfields(delim) which no longer exists." to the docs. That way, a search on "splitfields" would direct the user to str.split(sep) rather than simply throw a dialog box saying "No topics found". No one ever considers making life easy for the user. > > -John -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list