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[Python-Dev] Proof of the pudding: str.partition()

Bill Janssen janssen at parc.com
Thu Sep 1 02:42:02 CEST 2005 
Reinhold Birkenfeld writes:
> And it's horrible, for none of the other string methods accept a RE.

I suppose it depends on your perspective as to what exactly is
horrible.  I tend to think it's too bad that none of the other string
methods accept appropriate RE patterns.  Strings are thought of as
"core", whereas RE, a relatively new part of the stdlib, isn't.  But
it's OK -- it just gives the system more Java-ness, where you have
lots of little modules, each of which does something slightly
different.

> There are languages which give REs too much weight by philosophy
> (hint, hint), but Python isn't one of them. Interestingly, Python programmers
> suffer less from the "help me, my RE doesn't work" problem.

Yes, but perhaps the causative bug in those "other" languages is the
confusion between string *literals* and RE *literals*, which isn't a
problem in the idiom I suggested.

Or perhaps if RE was more helpful in Python, Python programmers would
indeed suffer from the same problem.

Bill
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