[docs] [issue21297] skipinitialspace in the csv module only skips spaces, not "whitespace" in general

Daniel Andersson report at bugs.python.org
Fri Apr 18 13:52:21 CEST 2014


New submission from Daniel Andersson:

Regarding the `skipinitialspace` parameter to the different CSV reader dialects in the `csv` module, the official documentation asserts:

    When True, whitespace immediately following the delimiter is ignored.

and the `help(csv)` style module documentation says:

    * skipinitialspace - specifies how to interpret whitespace which
      immediately follows a delimiter.  It defaults to False, which
      means that whitespace immediately following a delimiter is part
      of the following field.

"Whitespace" is a bit too general in both cases (at least a red herring in the second case), since it only skips spaces and not e.g. tabs [1].

In `Modules/_csv.c`, it more correctly describes the parameter. At line 81:

    int skipinitialspace;       /* ignore spaces following delimiter? */

and the actual implementation at line 638:

    else if (c == ' ' && dialect->skipinitialspace)
        /* ignore space at start of field */
        ;

No-one will probably assume that the whole UTF-8 spectrum of "whitespace" is skipped, but at least I initially assumed that the tab character was included.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_character

----------
assignee: docs at python
components: Documentation, Library (Lib)
messages: 216780
nosy: Daniel.Andersson, docs at python
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: skipinitialspace in the csv module only skips spaces, not "whitespace" in general
type: behavior
versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.1, Python 3.2, Python 3.3, Python 3.4, Python 3.5

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue21297>
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