[Python-Dev] A Horrible Inconsistency

[Georg Brandl]

Tim Peters wrote:
> [Raymond Hettinger]
> ...
>> Also, I'm not clear on the rationale for transforming negative
>> repetition counts to zero instead of raising an exception.
> 
> There are natural use cases.  Here's one:  you have a string and want
> to right-justify it to 80 columns with blanks if it's shorter than 80.
> 
>     s = " " * (80 - len(s)) + s
> 
> does the right thing in all cases, because the blank repetition
> gracefully collapses to an empty string whenever len(s) >= 80.  I've
> used that (and variants thereof) dozens of times.  Then again, I don't
> believe I've ever used the "integer * sequence" form (i.e., with the
> integer on the left).

I originally brought that up because decimal.py uses it.
(try to translate this to C code...)

Georg