On Sat, May 1, 2021 at 6:23 AM Rob Cliffe via Python-ideas <python-ideas@python.org> wrote:
Yes I agree your examples read nicely, without the usual boilerplate. Whether this is worth adding to the language is a moot point. Every addition increases the size of the compiler/interpreter, increases the maintenance burden, and adds to the learning curve for newbies (and not-so-newbies). As far as I can see in every case c'SOMETHING' can be replaced by ''.join(SOMETHING) or str.join('', (SOMETHING)) Having many ways to do the same thing is not a plus.
(We can ignore the str.join('', THING) option, as that's just a consequence of the way that instance method lookups work, and shouldn't happen in people's code (although I'm sure it does).) If people want a more intuitive way to join things, how about this?
class Str(str): ... __rmul__ = str.join ... ["a", "b", "c"] * Str(",") 'a,b,c'
Or perhaps: ... def __rmul__(self, iter): ... return self.join(str(x) for x in iter) ...
["a", 123, "b"] * Str(" // ") 'a // 123 // b'
If you want an intuitive way to join strings, surely multiplying a collection by a string makes better sense than wrapping it up in a literal-like thing. A string-literal-like-thing already exists for complex constructions - it's the f-string. The c-string doesn't really add anything above that. ChrisA