[Python-Dev] "funny".split("")

[Christian Tismer]

Tim Peters wrote:

> Last time this went around on comp.lang.python (I hope nobody believes this
> is a new discussion <wink>), my immediate gut reaction was that, *if*
> splitting on an empty string had to do something, it should "obviously"
> return the target string unchanged:  you didn't specify a sensible
> separator, so nothing should get split.  This is the way re.split() works
> too, given an empty "separator".
> 
> Other people think at least two other behaviors "are obvious" in this silly
> case.  That makes raising an exception most Pythonic to me.


I didn'd follow c.l.py too long and wouldn't have asked
this question otherwise. The booklet just says *nothing*
about this case, and I wanted to add the final answer.

I have a one single opinion in this case:
Let things be as easy to remember as possible.
I'd do exactly what Perl does in this case, whatever
it is. Only one fact to learn.

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