[Python-Dev] Proof of the pudding: str.partition()

[Shane Hathaway]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> "Shane Hathaway" <shane at hathawaymix.org> wrote in message 
> news:4314E51B.1050507 at hathawaymix.org...
> 
>>You can do both: make partition() return a sequence with attributes,
>>similar to os.stat().  However, I would call the attributes "before",
>>"sep", and "after".
> 
> 
> One could see that as a special-case back-compatibility kludge that maybe 
> should disappear in 3.0.  My impression is that the attributes were added 
> precisely because unpacking several related attributes into several 
> disconnected vars was found to be often awkward.  The sequencing is 
> arbitrary and one often needs less that all attributes.

Good point.  Unlike os.stat(), it's very easy to remember the order of 
the return values from partition().

I'll add my +1 vote for part() and +0.9 for partition().

As for the regex version of partition(), I wonder if a little cleanup 
effort is in order so that new regex features don't have to be added in 
two places.  I suggest a builtin for compiling regular expressions, 
perhaps called "regex".  It would be easier to use the builtin than to 
import the re module, so there would no longer be a reason for the re 
module to have functions that duplicate the regular expression methods.

Shane