On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 5:58 PM, MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> wrote:

On 2012-12-30 16:00, Ned Batchelder wrote:
I don't understand the conflict? .replace() from sequence does
precisely the same thing as .replace() from bytes if you limit the
arguments to single-byte values. It seems perfectly natural to me. I
must be missing something.

[snip]
The difference is that for bytes and str it returns the result (they
are immutable after all), but the suggested addition would mutate the
list in-place. In order to be consistent it would have to return the
result instead.

I don't think that consistency between str and list is desirable. If .index for example were consistent in str and list it would look like this:

[9, 8, 7, 6, 5].index([8,7]) # = 1

Also,

reversed, sorted (copy)

list.reverse, list.sort (in-place)

From that perspective list.replace working in-place *is* consistent.

However, I can see that this '.replace' might cause more confusion than future code clarity.

What about .indices though?