[Python-Dev] Re: [Csv] Minor change to behaviour of csv module

[Andrew McNamara]

>> Andrew explains that in the CSV module, escape characters are not
>> properly removed.
>>
>> Magnus writes:
>>> IMO this is the *only* reasonable behaviour. I don't understand why
>>> the escape character should be left in; this is one of the reason why
>>> UNIX-style colon-separated values don't work with the current module.
>>
>> Andrew writes back later:
>>> Thinking about this further, I suspect we have to retain the current
>>> behaviour, as broken as it is, as the default: it's conceivable that
>>> someone somewhere is post-processing the result to remove the 
>>> backslashes,
>>> and if we fix the csv module, we'll break their code.
>>
>> I'm with Magnus on this. No one has 4 year old code using the CSV 
>> module.
>> The existing behavior is just simply WRONG. Sure, of course we should
>> try to maintain backward compatibility, but surely SOME cases don't
>> require it, right? Can't we treat this misbehavior as an outright bug?
>
>+1 -- the nonremoval of escape characters smells like a bug to me, too.

Okay, I'm glad the community agrees (less work, less crustification).

For what it's worth, it wasn't a bug so much as a misfeature. I was
explicitly adding the escape character back in. The intention was to
make the feature more forgiving on users who accidently set the escape
character - in other words, only special (quoting, escaping, field
delimiter) characters received special treatment. With the benefit of
hindsight, that was an inadequately considered choice.

-- 
Andrew McNamara, Senior Developer, Object Craft
http://www.object-craft.com.au/