New submission from Chris Jerdonek: The documentation for str.splitlines()-- http://docs.python.org/dev/library/stdtypes.html#str.splitlines includes a statement that is not quite correct: "Unlike split(), if the string ends with line boundary characters the returned list does not have an empty last element." For example,
'\n'.splitlines() [''] '\n\n'.splitlines() ['', ''] '\r\n'.splitlines() [''] '\n\r\n'.splitlines() ['', ''] '\r'.splitlines() [''] 'a\n\n'.splitlines() ['a', '']
Also, the note about split() only applies when split() is passed a separator. For example--
'a\n'.split('\n') ['a', ''] 'a\n'.split() ['a']
Finally, the function's behavior on the empty string is another difference worth mentioning that is not covered by the existing note. I am attaching a patch that addresses these points. Notice also that the patch phrases it not as whether the list *has* an empty last element, but whether an *additional* last element should be added, which is the more important point. ---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation files: issue-splitlines-docs-1.patch keywords: easy, patch messages: 167394 nosy: cjerdonek, docs@python, jcea, pitrou priority: normal severity: normal stage: patch review status: open title: correct and clarify str.splitlines() documentation versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.2, Python 3.3 Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file26680/issue-splitlines-docs-1.patch _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue15554> _______________________________________