[Python-Dev] Fwd: Problem withthe API for str.rpartition()

[Raymond Hettinger]

> ISTM this is just begging for newbie (and maybe not-so-newbie)  
> confusion.  Why not just document both as returning (left, sep,  
> right) which seems the most obvious description of what the methods  
> return?


I'm fine with that (though it's a little sad that we think the rather 
basic concepts of head and tail are beyond the grasp of typical 
pythonistas).

Changing to left/sep/right will certainly disambiguate questions about 
the ordering of the return tuple.  OTOH, there is some small loss in 
that the head/tail terminology is highly suggestive of how to use the 
function when making succesive partitions.


Raymond