At the moment it is very silent on Python-dev. I guess you guys are all out hunting dead parrots, which escaped from the cages on April 1st. ;-) So this might be the right moment to present a possibly bad idea (TM). see below. Regards, Peter -- Peter Funk, Oldenburger Str.86, D-27777 Ganderkesee, Germany, Fax:+49 4222950260 office: +49 421 20419-0 (ArtCom GmbH, Grazer Str.8, D-28359 Bremen, Germany) PEP: XXXX Title: String Scanning Version: $Revision$ Author: pf@artcom-gmbh.de (Peter Funk) Status: Not yet Draft Type: Standards Track Python-Version: 2.2 Created: 02-Apr-2001 Post-History: Abstract This document proposes a string scanning feature for Python to allow easier string parsing. The suggested syntax change is to allow the use of the division '/' operator for string operands as counterpart to the already existing '%' string interpolation operator. In current Python this raises an exception: 'TypeError: bad operand type(s) for /'. With the proposed enhancement the expression string1 / format2 should either return a simple value, a tuple of values or a dictionary depending on the content of the right operand (aka. format) string. Copyright This document is in the public domain. Specification The feature should mimic the behaviour of the scanf function well known to C programmers. For any format string sf and any matching input string si the following pseudo condition should be true: string.split( sf % (si / sf) ) == string.split( si ) That is modulo any differences in white space the result of the string interpolation using the intermediate result from the string scanning operation should look similar to original input string. All conversions are introduced by the % (percent sign) character. The format string may also contain other characters. White space (such as blanks, tabs, or newlines) in the format string match any amount of white space, including none, in the input. Everything else matches only itself. Scanning stops when an input character does not match such a format character. Scanning also stops when an input conversion cannot be made (see below). Examples Here is an example of an interactive session exhibiting the expected behaviour of this feature. >>> "12345 John Doe" / "%5d %8s" (12345, 'John Doe') >>> "12 34 56 7.890" / "%d %d %d %f" (12, 34, 56, 7.8899999999999997) >>> "12345 John Doe, Foo Bar" / "%(num)d %(n)s, %(f)s %(b)s" {'n': 'John Doe', 'f': 'Foo', 'b': 'Bar', 'num': 12345} >>> "1 2" / "%d %d %d" Traceback (innermost last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in ? TypeError: not all arguments filled Discussion This should fix the assymetry between arithmetic types and strings. It should also make the life easier for C programmers migrating to Python (see FAQ 4.33). Those poor souls are acustomed to scanf as the counterpart of printf and usually feel uneasy to convert to string slitting, slicing or the syntax of regular expressions. Security Issues There should be no security issues. Implementation There is no implementation yet. This is just an idea.  Local Variables: mode: indented-text indent-tabs-mode: nil End: