[issue21297] csv.skipinitialspace only skips spaces, not "whitespace" in general

[Daniel Andersson]

Daniel Andersson added the comment:

No, multiple spaces are ignored as advertised (according to actual tests; not just reading the code), but only spaces (U+0020) and not e.g. tabs (U+0009), which are also included in the term "whitespace", along with several other characters.

In light of your followup question, the internal comment at `Modules/_csv.c`, line 639:

    /* ignore space at start of field */

could perhaps be clarified to say "spaces" instead of "space", but the code context makes it quite clear, and it does not face the users anyway. The main point of this issue is meant to be the wording in the module docstring and the official docs regarding "whitespace" contra "space".

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